Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Iral B. Johns (1902-1987) was an American chemist.

An associate professor of chemistry at Iowa State University, Iral B. Johns joined the Manhattan Project in 1942 as a director of the plutonium proejct at the Ames, Iowa laboratory. Johns was immediately transferred to Los Alamos in 1943 to continue working on the Manhattan Project. He investigated methods of removing fission products from uranium. Eventually, he became the group leader of a chemistry group working with polonium. Johns was one of the official observers at the Trinity test site. 

Iral B. Johns’s Timeline
1902 Born.

1930 Graduated from Knox College magna cum laude.

1942 Became director of the plutonium project at the Ames laboratory.

1943 Moved to Los Alamos.

1987 Died.

Related Profiles

Frank A. Manley

Los Alamos, NM

John T. Brown

Hanford, WA

Glenn Bonjour

Tinian Island

Glenn Bonjour served in the 1st Ordnance Squadron. 

Warren L. Coble

Hiroshima Mission

Warren L. Coble served as a sergeant in the 393rd Bombardment Squadron. Coble was regularly assigned as a radio operator in the Up An’ Atom, but did not fly in that plane during the August 1945 bombing missions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.