Author, The Secret History of RDX, the Super-explosive that helped win World War II
This week, Ira spoke with Colin F. Baxter, author of The Secret History of RDX, the Super-explosive that helped win World War II, published by University Press of Kentucky. In this explosive episode of Ira’s Everything Bagel, Colin talks about the significance of developing RDX in mass quantities to fight the Axis powers; the unusual combination of ingredients necessary to manufacture the explosive; the cooperation (and sometimes tension) between the Americans, the British and the Canadians to make RDX a priority; the contributions of individuals such as General Leslie R. Groves and Admiral William H.P. Blandy; the sacrifices by thousands of workers who assembled the munitions at the Holston Ordinance Works; and the one secret he discovered that overcame bureaucratic resistance to mass production of RDX and its subsequent contribution to help end the war.
Colin F. Baxter is professor emeritus of history at East Tennessee State University and former chair of the Department of History. He is the author of The Normandy Campaign, 1944: A Selected Bibliography; The War in North Africa, 1940–1943: A Selected Bibliography; Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1887–1976: A Selected Bibliography; and coeditor of The American Military Tradition from Colonial Times to the Present.
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