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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

William S. Cowart, Jr.

Design Engineer Los Alamos, NM

Manhattan Project VeteranMilitary VeteranSpecial Engineer Detachment

William Cowart was a design engineer with the Special Engineering Detachment for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Before joining the Manhattan Project, Cowart was a fighter bomber pilot with the 8th Air Force in England. In August 1944, Cowart married his wife in England, and came home to the United States. When he was recruited for the Manhattan Project, he was in the middle of his degree in nuclear physics at Ohio State University, and he went on to finish it after the war. 

William S. Cowart, Jr.’s Timeline
19411944 Serves as bomber pilot in the Eighth Air Force in Europe.

19441945 Returns to the United States and enrolls at Ohio State University for a degree in nuclear physics. He is recruited to join the Special Engineering Detachment at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

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