Robert E. Hayes

Airplane MechanicMarshall Islands

Tinian Island

Military VeteranPacific Nuclear TestsPostwar Nuclear Program

Listen to Robert E. Hayes's Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Robert “Bob” Hayes worked as an airplane mechanic on Kwajalein Island, maintaining Boeing B-29s. He talks about life in the Pacific during World War II, being trained to use a flamethrower on Iwo Jima, maintaining complicated airplane engines, and witnessing the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests.

Robert E. Hayes's Timeline

1926 Oct 4th Born in Wimington, IL.

1945 Drafted into the US military.

19451946 Served as a B-29 airplane mechanic in Roswell, NM and Kwajalein, Tinian, Iwo Jima, and other islands in the Pacific.

1946 Witnessed the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests.

Operation Crossroads Yearbook cover

Robert Hayes's profile in the Operation Crossroads Yearbook

Interior of Operation Crossroads Yearbook, on Kwajalein

Related Profiles

Daniel S. Barkin

K-25 Plant

Attended the City College of New York.

William L. Becker

K-25 Plant

Attended Manhattan College.

William Floyd Hartshorn Jr.

Wendover, UT

William Floyd Hartshorn, Jr. was a lead pilot of the 216th flight test section at Wendover, Utah. Early Life Hartshorn was born on July 28, 1918 in McAllen, Texas.

Ben Benjamin

Los Alamos, NM

Ben Benjamin was a sergeant in the Special Engineer Detachment during the Manhattan Project. He had previously worked in industry making lenses and prisms, and was assigned to the Optics Group to help with photographing the Trinity Test.