While working on the project, he was nearly killed in an accident at the Philadelphia Naval Yard where a prototype thermal diffusion isotope separation device was being constructed.
He is perhaps best known for his book The Griffin - the greatest untold espionage story of World War II, about Paul Rosbaud, who passed important scientific and military information from Germany to the Allies.
Two engineers were killed immediately and two soldiers received severe burns in the accident, which occurred while they were trying to unclog an enrichment device which exploded, releasing steam laced with uranium hexafluoride and hydrofluoric acid.
[1] Despite wartime censorship of any details of the incident and secret classification after the war ended, Kramish lobbied the government to memorialize the victims of the accident.
[1] A resident of Reston, Virginia, Kramish died at age 87 on June 15, 2010, at George Washington University Hospital due to normal pressure hydrocephalus.