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