1st Lt. Nick Del Genio — October 1945 (Photo by J. E. Westcott)

Nicholas Del Gain was born in 1906 in Brooklyn. NY. While very young, his father a carpentr, moved his family back to Italy to live for a few years and then moved them back to Brooklyn where Nick grew up. He went to prep school at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, and put himself through college at Yale University. While at Yale he was a member of their boxing team. After winning his B. A . degree, he stayed on at Yale and received a Law Degree. During the 1930s he taught school in Massachusetts.

Some time after Pearl Harbor he joined the Army and was commissioned as an officer and was assigned to theSecurity Section of the Manhattan Project.

He was stationed in Oak Ridge, the Headquarters of the Manhattan Project's operations and was chosen to escort onc of the small but vital pieces of U-235 metal for the first nuclear weapon from Los Alamos to Tinian Island in the far Pacific Marianna Islands, a trip of well over 6.000 miles.

When he retuned two months later, he was assigned to the Legal Section of the U.S. Engineering District (USED) in Oak Ridge where he was Claims Judge Advocate and legal officer. He later resigned his commission and went to work for the Atomic Energy Commision in Washington.

In 1949 he and Martha Farrar, who he had known in Oak Ridge, were married at her home near Shelbyville, TN. He and Martha immediately left for Milan, Italy. Martha's wedding announcement puts it this way:

At present he is with the Atomic Energy Commision, in Washington, DC, where he is an administrative offioer. He has been appointed as Executive Secretary for the American Chamber of Commerce with offices in Milan where the couple will reside following their weddng.

His obit suggests this assignment lasted two to three years and adds that he had another tour of duty in Italy later:

1952, he came to Washington as security and intelligence officer for the Atomic Energy Agency. He was a State Department intelligence officer in Rome from 1964 to 1966, and then returned to Washngton, retiring from the State Department in 1972.

In the Washington area, they lived for many years in Chevy Chase. MD, and he had a long and successful carrer with the CentraI Intelligence Agency, with whom he likely was associated from its beginning. Nick died at age 88 at the Collingswood Nursing Home in Rockville, MD after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, and was buried with his wife's family near Shelbyville.

His sole surviving sister-in-law in 2000, Sara Farrar Dodson of Shelbyville, TN commented to the author: "I believe Nick was the most patriotic person I've ever known. Never have I heard him criticize an elected official nor any policy of the United States."

Source:
"From Us in Oak Ridge to Tojo"-NDG
The Story of Lt. Nicholas Del Genio's Autographed Dollar Bill
Wm. J. Wilcox Jr.

http://www.oakridgeheritage.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Bill-Wilcox-How_the_Last_Piece_of_Little_Boy_Got_to_Tinian_Island.pdf
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Nicholas Delgenio
New York, New York City Births

Name: Nicholas Delgenio
Event Type: Birth
Event Date: 25 Aug 1906
Event Place: Manhattan, New York, New York, United States
Gender: Male
Race: White
Father's Name: Emanuele Delgenio
Father's Birthplace: Italy
Father's Age: 28
Mother's Name: Nunzia Casella Delgenio
Mother's Birthplace: Italy
Mother's Age: 27
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Son of Andrea Emanuele Del Genio and Anunciata "Nunzia" Casella
Aka Andrew Emanuel and Nancy Del Genio