10 Facts About Edgar Sengier

Edgar Edouard Bernard Sengier was a Belgian mining engineer and director of the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga mining company that operated in the Belgian Congo during World War II.

Edgar 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.

At the start of the war, Edgar Sengier himself traveled to New York to conduct Union Miniere worldwide operations from there.

Nichols and Edgar Sengier negotiated a contract, and the Staten Island stockpile was transferred to the United States Army.

Since Tizard had informed him about uranium's potential a couple of years earlier, Edgar Sengier had a pretty good idea why Nichols had shown up to inquire about his ore deposits, something Nichols elaborated on during a 1965 Voices of the Manhattan Project interview by the journalist Stephane Groueff:.

Edgar Sengier had been following some of the work done by the French scientists before the war, and he knew the importance of the uranium as a possibility.

Edgar Sengier had shipped some stuff from the Congo to Belgium, which was captured by the Germans and Patton finally rescued it.

Edgar Sengier remained director of the Societe Generale and the Union Miniere until 1949.

Edgar Sengier remained on the company's administrative board until 1960, before retiring in Cannes, where he died in 1963.

In 1946, Edgar Sengier returned to the United States and was awarded the Medal for Merit for his contribution to the Allied victory by General Groves at a private ceremony in his Washington office, receiving the distinction of becoming the first non-American civilian to be awarded the medal.