Project Alberta

Lawrence H. Johnston was an American physicist. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1940, Johnston followed his mentor Luis Alvarez to MIT. He worked in the MIT Radiation Lab, where he and Alvarez developed the ground controlled radar approach to facilitate plane landings in adverse weather conditions.  In […]

John D. Hopper served as a civilian in Project Alberta. 

After joining the Manhattan Project in 1944, Arthur B. Machen participated in key moments in the development of the atomic bomb. He began his work in Los Alamos, where he helped to assemble the first test bomb in Alamogordo. Later, he trained in Wendover, Utah with the 509th Composite Group as a civilian. He was […]

Harlow Russ was a civilian scientist who worked as part of Project Alberta. Project Alberta staff worked on Tinian Island alongside members of the 509th Composite Group to transport and assemble the components of the two nuclear bombs. Russ helped to assemble the Fat Man plutonium bomb which was dropped on the Japanese city of […]

Morton Camac (1923-2012) was an American physicist. Camac graduated from the University of Chicago in 1943 and stayed there to work under Enrico Fermi on the Chicago Pile-1 nuclear reactor. He was then sent to Los Alamos to join a team that was calculating the amount of uranium required for the bomb.  Camac was stationed […]

Francis Birch (1903-1992) was an American geophysicist. In 1942, Birch worked at the MIT Radiation Lab, which was tasked with radar development. One of his primary projects was the proximity fuze, a device that used radar to determine the exact height to detonate a bomb.  Later, Birch was transferred to Los Alamos to join the […]

Charles P. Baker was a nuclear physicist who worked at Los Alamos and Tinian during the Manhattan Project. Born in Leominster, Massachusetts, Baker received his bachelor’s degree from Denison University. He went on to receive his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Cornell University. He then joined the faculty at Cornell. Baker was recruited to the […]

Part of the Special Engineer Detachment (SED), Donald C. Harms was first sent to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to work on the Manhattan Project. Transferred to Los Alamos shortly after, he was selected to become a member of Project Alberta, testing bomb designs for combat use in the modified “Silverplate” B-29s stationed at Wendover, Utah. He […]

Frank J. Fortine served in the Special Engineering Detachment and Project Alberta, the group that transported the first atomic bombs to Tinian Island.

William Penney (1909-1991) was a British mathematician and physicist. William Penney’s first assignment of the war was a research position with the Royal Navy, studying collisions, explosions and shockwaves and searching for ways to use hydrodynamics to assist the navy. In 1943, he was reassigned to the Tube Alloys, a clandestine British and Canadian effort […]