Donald Collins

PhysicistChicago, IL

Manhattan Project VeteranMilitary Veteran

Read Autobiography of Donald Leslie Collins, Chapter 7: Recollections of Nagasaki

Lieutenant Donald Collins was assigned to the University of Chicago's Met Lab in the Health Physics Division. Collins had graduated with a B.S. in physics from Michigan State University in 1942. Upon graduation, Collins joined the Army Air Forces and was assigned to the Mangattan Engineer District, before being transferred to the Met Lab at Chicago.

Collins' final assignment with the Army was as a member of the 14-man Atomic Bomb Investigative Commission that entered Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war. In Japan, Collins helped determine the radiation exposure doses to the survivors.

Donald Collins’s Timeline

1942 Graduates from Michigan State University with a B.S. in Physics

1942 Joins the Army Air Forces and is assigned to the Manhattan Engineer District

1943 Transferred to the Metallurgical Lab at the University of Chicago, and works with Arthur Compton on radiation safety procedures.

1945 Goes to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a member of the Atomic Bomb Investigation Committee

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