Source: Wikipedia
Y-12 National Security Complex was built as part of the Manhattan Project for the purpose of enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs.
The Chief Engineer of the Manhattan District, Colonel James C. Marshall, and his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth D. Nichols, discovered that the electromagnetic isotope separation process would require 5,000 short tons (4,500 tonnes) of copper, which was in desperately short supply. However, they realized that silver could be substituted, in an 11:10 ratio. On 3 August 1942, Nichols met with the Under Secretary of the Treasury, Daniel W. Bell, and asked for the transfer of silver bullion from the West Point Bullion Depository. Nichols later recalled the conversation:
He explained the procedure for transferring the silver and asked, “How much do you need?” I replied, “Six thousand tons.” ‘How many troy ounces is that?” he asked. In fact I did not know how to convert tons to troy ounces, and neither did he. A little impatient, I responded, “I don’t know how many troy ounces we need but I know I need six thousand tons—that is a definite quantity. What difference does it make how we express the quantity?” He replied rather indignantly, “Young man, you may think of silver in tons, but the Treasury will always think of silver in troy ounces.”
Eventually, 14,700 short tons (13,300 tonnes; 430,000,000 troy ounces) of silver were used, then worth over $1 billion. Nichols had to provide a monthly accounting to the Treasury. The 1,000-troy-ounce (31 kg) silver bars were taken under guard to the Defense Plant Corporation in Carteret, New Jersey, where they were cast into cylindrical billets, and then to Phelps Dodge in Bayway, New Jersey, where they were extruded into strips 0.625 inches (15.9 mm) thick, 3 inches (7.6 cm) wide and 40 feet (12 m) long. Some 258 carloads were shipped under guard by rail to Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they were wound onto magnetic coils and sealed into welded casings. Finally, they moved by unguarded flatcars to the Clinton Engineer Works. There, special procedures were instituted for handling the silver. When they had to drill holes in it, they did so over paper so that the filings could be collected. After the war, all the machinery was dismantled and cleaned and the floorboards beneath the machinery were ripped up and burned to recover minute amounts of silver. In the end, only 1/3,600,000th was lost. In May 1970, the last 67 short tons (61 tonnes; 2,000,000 troy ounces) of silver was replaced with copper and returned to the Treasury.