Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

John E. Cantlon

Co-pilot on Big StinkNagasaki Mission

Tinian IslandWendover, UT
509th Composite GroupManhattan Project VeteranMilitary VeteranNagasaki Mission
North Airfield at Tinian Island.

John E. Cantlon served as a 2nd lieutenant in the 393rd Bombardment Squadron. He participated in the mission to Nagasaki as the co-pilot of the Big Stink, though he was regularly assigned to the Necessary Evil. 

C-14 Crew on Tinian. Cantlon is standing in the top row, fourth from the left. Photo courtesy of Richard H. Campbell and the Janet Chapman Pence Collection from the Air Force Museum.

Related Profiles

Kathy Collins

Y-12 Plant

Collins worked as a typist at the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project.

Philip Morrison

Los Alamos, NM

Philip Morrison (1915-2005) was an American physicist. Morrison studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley, and received his Ph.

Gene Zirbel

Los Alamos, NM

Helen Williams

Chicago, IL

Helen Williams was a stenographer and clerk at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Lab (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project.