Big Stink

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Big Stink was the name of a B-29 Superfortress (B-29-40-MO 44-27354, victor number 90) participating in the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group, it was used as a camera plane in support of the bomb-carrying Bockscar, to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb, and also to carry scientific observers. The mission was flown by Crew C-14 but with Group Operations Officer Lt.Col. James I. Hopkins, Jr., as the aircraft commander.

The aircraft failed to make its rendezvous with the remainder of the strike flight. It did however complete its photographic mission and recovered at Yontan Airfield, Okinawa with both Bockscar and The Great Artiste.

Built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Omaha, Nebraska, Necessary Evil was accepted by the Army Air Forces on April 20, 1945, and flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, by its assigned crew A-5 (Lt.Col. Thomas J. Classen, Aircraft Commander and group deputy commander) in May. It departed Wendover for Tinian on June 19 and arrived on June 24. There it was assigned victor number 10, but that was changed for security reasons to victor 90 on August 1. On July 23, 1945, with Col. Paul Tibbets at the controls, it dropped a dummy Little Boy bomb assembly off Tinian to test its radar altimeter detonators.

On August 6, 1945, Big Stink was flown by Crew B-8 (Capt. Charles McKnight) as a back-up spare but landed on Iwo Jima when all other aircraft in the flight continued on. The airplane was reassigned to Crew C-12 (Capt. Herman S. Zahn) immediately following the Nagasaki mission who named the airplane and had nose art applied.

After World War II it served with the 509th CG at Roswell Army Air Field. In April 1946 it was assigned to Operation Crossroads, and renamed Dave's Dream by its crew in honor of Captain David Semple, a bombardier who had been killed in the crash of another B-29 on March 7, 1946, near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Semple had been a bombardier in many of the 155 test drops for the Manhattan Project. On July 1, 1946, Dave's Dream dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb used in Test Able of Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll.

In June 1949 Big Stink/Dave's Dream was transferred to the 97th Bomb Wing at Biggs Air Force Base, Texas. It was converted to a TB-29 training aircraft in April 1950 and was dropped from the Air Force inventory in February 1960.

Nagasaki Mission Crew: Crew C-14 (normally assigned to Necessary Evil; Capt. Norman Ray)

  • Lt.Col. James I. Hopkins, Jr., Aircraft Commander
  • 2nd Lt. John E. Cantlon, Co-Pilot
  • 2nd Lt. Stanley G. Steinke, Navigator
  • 2nd Lt. Myron Faryna, Bombardier
  • M/Sgt. George L. Brabenec, Flight Engineer
  • Sgt. Francis X. Dolan, Radio Operator
  • Cpl. Richard F. Cannon, Radar Operator
  • Sgt. Martin G. Murray, Tail Gunner
  • Sgt. Thomas A. Bunting, Assistant Engineer/Scanner


A FB-111A strategic bomber of the USAF 509th Bomb Wing, serial 67-7195, carried both the name and original nose art of Big Stink and the name Dave's Dream on its nosewheel doors while based at Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire, in the 1970s and 1980s.

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