Edgar Sengier
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Edgar Sengier (1879,Courtrai, Belgium—July 26, 1963) was the director of the Belgian Union Minière du Haut Katanga during World War II. Sengier is credited with giving the American government access to much of the uranium necessary for the Manhattan Project. He was the first non-American civilian to be awarded the Medal for Merit by the United States government.
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[edit] The Union Minière du Haut Katanga
Sengier graduated in 1903 as a mining engineer from the University of Louvain (Leuven, Belgium), and joined the Belgian Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) as it was beginning to exploit mines in the Congolese province of Katanga. The UMHK was a subsidiary of the Union, which was itself part of the Société Générale de Belgique. The Société's activity was, among other things, to mine copper deposits in Katanga.
[edit] Shinkolobwe's uranium
Uranium was discovered as early as 1915 in Shinkolobwe, and extraction began in 1921. Uranium ore from Shinkolobwe was very rich (it contained up to 65% of uranium); in comparison, Canadian ore contained only 0.02%.
In 1938, Edgar Sengier, then director of both the Société Générale and the UMHK, learned about the potential of uranium from European scientists. British scientists had warned him that should the material he possessed fall into the enemy's hands, the consequences would be catastrophic. Sengier understood that uranium, a by-product that had until then been stored without being used, could become a crucial resource in times of war. In 1939, he ordered that half of the uranium stock available in Africa (about a thousand tons) be secretly dispatched to New York.
At the start of the war, Sengier himself travelled to New York to conduct the Union Minière 's worldwide operations from there. At first, the UMHK's uranium stockpile remained in a Staten Island depot.
[edit] Manhattan Project
In September 1942, Colonel Kenneth Nichols met Sengier in his New York office. Nichols had been ordered to find uranium by the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves. He asked if the Union Minière could supply uranium, stating that he knew his request would be difficult to fulfill quickly.
Sengier's answer became history: "You can have the ore now. It is in New York, a thousand tons of it. I was waiting for your visit." Sengier established a contract, and the Staten Island stockpile was transferred to the US Army. The Army also secured the remaining ore in Shinkolobwe.
[edit] The exploitation of Shinkolobwe
The Shinkolobwe mine was closed since 1939 and flooded. The American Army sent a squad from its Corps of Engineers to restore the mine, expand the aerodromes in Léopoldville and Elizabethville, and build a port in Matadi, on the Congo River. Between 1942 and 1944, about 30,000 tons of uranium ore were sold to the US Army.
The American government wanted exclusivity on the Shinkolobwe uranium ore, but Sengier initially refused. With support from the British government, the United States obtained exclusive rights on the Shinkolobwe ore in negotiations with the Belgian government (which was then in exile in London). However, it seems that Sengier alone was at least partially aware of the Manhattan Project.
The agreement between the United States, Great Britain, and Belgium lasted 10 years and continued after the war. The uranium agreements in part explain Belgium's relative ease in rebuilding its economy after the war, as the country had no debt with the major financial powers.
[edit] Awards and recognition
In 1946, Sengier returned to the United States, where general Groves handed him the Medal for Merit for his contribution to Allied victory. He was the first non-American civilian to receive this distinction. His citation merely mentioned "services in supplying material", as there were still restrictions on wartime information at the time he was awarded his medal.
Sengier was also awarded the titles of Knight of the Order of the British Empire, Commander of the French Légion d'honneur and Officer of the Order of Léopold and the Belgian Order of the Crown (ordre de la couronne).
In 1948, a radioactive mineral discovered in Congo, sengierite, was named in his honor.
[edit] Later life
Edgar Sengier remained director of the Société Générale and the Union Minière until 1949. He remained on the company's administrative board until 1960, before retiring in Cannes, where he died in 1963.
