Скачать или смотреть The North Carolina towns that drowned to help build the bomb

Nine days after Pearl Harbor, Congress approved a secret project in one of the most remote stretches of the Smoky Mountains.

They built the tallest dam in the Eastern United States in just 36 months. 5,000 workers running three shifts, around the clock, seven days a week. Military marches piped through loudspeakers. Floodlights blazing through the night.

When they closed the gates, entire towns vanished underwater.

Fontana. Bushnell. Forney. Judson. Gone.

1,311 families relocated. 1,047 graves moved. 60+ miles of roads submerged. All to power a facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that most Americans wouldn't learn about until the war was over.

The story of Fontana Dam is one of the most extraordinary — and least known — chapters of WWII history. And it happened right here in the Smoky Mountains.