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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Robert E. Hayes

Airplane MechanicMarshall Islands

Tinian Island
Military VeteranPacific Nuclear TestsPostwar Nuclear Program
Robert Hayes Listen to Robert E. Hayes’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Robert “Bob” Hayes worked as an airplane mechanic on Kwajalein Island, maintaining Boeing B-29s. He talks about life in the Pacific during World War II, being trained to use a flamethrower on Iwo Jima, maintaining complicated airplane engines, and witnessing the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests.

Robert E. Hayes’s Timeline
1926 Oct 4th Born in Wimington, IL.

1945 Drafted into the US military.

19451946 Served as a B-29 airplane mechanic in Roswell, NM and Kwajalein, Tinian, Iwo Jima, and other islands in the Pacific.

1946 Witnessed the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests.

Operation Crossroads Yearbook cover

Robert Hayes's profile in the Operation Crossroads Yearbook 

Interior of Operation Crossroads Yearbook, on Kwajalein 

Interior of Operation Crossroads Yearbook, on Kwajalein 

Interior of Operation Crossroads Yearbook, on Kwajalein 

Interior of Operation Crossroads Yearbook, on Kwajalein 

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