Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Robert Krauss

Official Historian of the 509th Composite Group

Expert
Bob Krauss Listen to Robert Krauss’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Robert “Bob” Krauss is the Official Historian of the 509th Composite Group. He and his wife, Amelia Krauss, published The 509th Remembered, which profiles the service members of the 509th Composite Group and the events that surrounded the group and its role in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Krauss became interested in collecting and preserving the history of the 509th in his twenties after reading the book Enola Gay by Max Morgan-Witts. During his research, he met and befriended many of the airmen of the 509th, including Donald Albury, Ray Gallagher, Fred Olivi, Paul Tibbets, George Caron, and others.

Krauss began planning the 509th’s reunions in 2000, and has hosted the gathering for nearly two decades. Over the years, he has collected photographs, correspondence, flight suits, and other artifacts from the members of the 509th.

 

Related Profiles

J. Samuel Walker

Washington, DC

J. Samuel (“Sam”) Walker is the former historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the author of Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan.

Bruce Cameron Reed

Bruce Cameron Reed is a physicist and a professor at Alma College. Reed completed his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Waterloo in Canada in 1984.

Jay Shelton

Jay Shelton is an American physicist and school teacher. After he received a Ph.D. in physics, Shelton taught physics at Williams College for six years.

Avner Cohen

Israel

Avner Cohen is an Israeli-American historian and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.