He never forgot. He chose not to discuss it. For decades he withheld the secrets of his past.
Those who shared a backyard fence didn’t know. Those who sat in his classroom didn’t know. His wife and stepdaughters didn’t know.
That deafening silence ended in 2012 when Dr. Harrison Miller Moseley revealed his explosive past.
After helping the famed Mighty Mites to high school football glory in 1938, the 126-pound Moseley had little choice but to pursue academics over athletics. As brilliant a scientist as he was a tenacious football player, Moseley — who was the Masonic Home and School’s valedictorian in 1939 — would receive a full-ride scholarship to attend TCU. This would eventually lead to his becoming one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, which would result in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
MOSELEY HAD AN UNUSUAL PERCEPTION OF TIME. He never looked at a watch or a clock. No one walked in and sounded the alarm, “time’s up.” And yet, every interview, regardless of the time of day, lasted exactly two hours. I could look at my watch and know when to expect our visit to end. At precisely two hours, he would stand up — that was my cue. He never said, “That’s all for today.” He simply stood up.
That keen perspective of time was echoed by a former student of Moseley’s who remembered sitting in class — Moseley would become a physics professor at his alma mater — in awe as Moseley started every lesson at the upper, left-hand corner of the chalkboard and end in the lower, right-hand corner when the bell rang.
For years, acquaintances, students, and colleagues had sized him up and judged him for his odd reserve.
Little did they know that Moseley never had a normal childhood. For that matter, nothing in his life was normal.
Moseley was born on a small farm in Dundee, Texas, with the Great Depression looming.
When his father, John Moseley, died, he left an insurance policy of sorts. He was a Mason, and that entitled his children to be dropped off at The Masonic Home and School to live. Though his mother was still living, one day Moseley found himself at the school and home that was made up of orphaned children.
On his first day, the superintendent began filling Moseley’s small arms with necessities that included three pairs of coveralls, two towels, a comb, and two pairs of shoes — the low-quarter shoes is what they wore on Sunday when the students attended church in the home’s gym as neighboring pastors held services. They prayed in unison before and after every meal, and the teachings of the Bible were weaved in all subjects.
Anchored by his faith and propelled by his determination, the tiny-framed Moseley became an important contributor on the unexpectedly successful Masonic Home and School’s football team.
Regularly outweighed by their opponents by 30 to 50 pounds in a sport where the winner is often determined by who’s the most difficult to tackle, the Mighty Mites, as they were nicknamed, didn’t just put up fights worthy of moral victories. They won on the sport’s biggest stages.
Coached by Rusty Russell, who nearly lost his eyesight during World War I, the Mighty Mites had been upgraded to Class A in 1932. So, the team was now competing against schools 10 times its size. That 1932 team would go undefeated and make it to the state championship game — a game that would end in a 0 – 0 tie.
Sports writing in that era had a knack for the dramatic, and seeing a good David and Goliath trope, several sports writers made the small Fort Worth school a nationwide, feel-good, underdog story.
With the nation’s eyes on the team, the 1938 iteration was the smallest in weight Russell would ever coach. Despite the weight discrepancies, the team would go toe-to-toe with their competition, and Moseley, at 126 pounds (132 on a good day), would achieve All District honors.
An article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote of Moseley: “Although comparatively light, these wingmen have been outstanding for Masonic Home this year. They are due to sparkle against the Patriots tonight. Left is Norman Strange, lanky 137-pounder. Right is Miller Moseley, 132.”
That year, the Mighty Mites would miraculously reach the state semifinals for the third time under Coach Russell. The team would also play one of the most memorable high school football games in the state’s history — a 12 – 12 tie against Highland Park. Masonic Home would tally the win due to an edge in penetrations, and as the team went deeper into the playoffs, Highland Park fans started a collection and donated new black and orange uniforms to the Mighty Mites.
Despite this success on the gridiron, it would be the second team Moseley played on that would leave the greatest impact.
MOSELEY’S FIRST JOB AT TCU was answering the telephone for the university’s switchboard. He soon moved to a job in the physics department, where he was a star pupil under Dr. Newton Gaines. His studies would eventually take him to Chapel Hill to study under Nathan Rosen, a friend and collaborator of Albert Einstein’s.
Rosen, the man who first spotted Moseley’s genius, had collaborated with Einstein and Boris Podolsky on the EPR paradox, one of the most famous theoretical articles ever written on quantum mechanics and the most important paper Einstein wrote after fleeing Germany.
When Einstein invited Rosen to join the Manhattan Project, Rosen told Einstein that he wanted to bring along his brightest student, Moseley. The young orphaned boy from Dundee found himself working with and recognized by the upper echelon of the Manhattan Project. He was now considered in the same class as Einstein, Rosen, Philip Abelson, Ross Gunn, and others.
Moseley worked directly under Gunn, the technical adviser of the United States Naval Research Laboratory and member of the federal government’s S-1 Uranium Committee.
In a secret memorandum dated July 13, 1944, from Vice Admiral Edward L. Cochrane to Rear Admiral W.R. Purnell, it was stated that the thermal diffusion process for isotopic separation, which would soon be in operation at the Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory at Philadelphia, be given the name Abelson-Gunn Process. This was in recognition of the two scientists, Abelson and Gunn, who had developed it.
Moseley was, once again, a significant player.
He knew that he was working with the most dangerous material in the world, and the smallest mistake could have cost him his life and all of those standing with him.
The tall columns in the laboratory, the hot steam, and platform were something out of a scientific horror story. But it was the horror outside those walls that made his job so significant.
Moseley’s intense effort on the gridiron, playing against boys twice his size, was just the prelude for his new circle of scientists fighting to end the war.
Moseley had no idea when the bomb would drop, but he wasn’t surprised when he heard the news that an atomic bomb had been detonated over Hiroshima. He was, however, surprised when it did not deter Japan, resulting in a second bomb being detonated over Nagasaki three days later. The combined bombings resulted in an estimated 200,000 civilians being killed.
“I was just doing my job,” Moseley said in a 2008 interview with TCU Magazine.
After the war, Moseley returned to school, and Rosen would sign his dissertation. After graduating from UNC at Chapel Hill, Moseley returned to Fort Worth, where he became a professor at TCU, becoming a mainstay at the university until his retirement in 1990.
Moseley died at the age of 92 in September of 2014, two years after granting author Stella Brooks numerous interviews that would lead to her book, Unbelievable: The Unmasking of Dr. Harrison Miller Moseley, which told the story of his cinematic life. A private man, these were the only lengthy interviews he ever granted.
