Bockscar
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Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car or Bocks Car, is the name of the U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bomber that dropped the "Fat Man" nuclear weapon over Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945, the second atomic weapon used against Japan.
Bockscar was flown on that day by the crew of another B-29, The Great Artiste, and was commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney, commander of the 393rd Bomber Squadron of the 509th Composite Group. The Great Artiste had been outfitted for scientific measurement for the Hiroshima mission and so the flight crews were simply switched to each others' plane; thus making The Great Artiste the only support plane to accompany both atomic bombs to Japan.
Kokura was the primary target, but when Bockscar arrived at its rendezvous point off the coast of Japan the third aircraft of its flight was not present. After waiting 40 minutes, Sweeney and Bock proceeded to Kokura but found it obscured by clouds. Sweeney had orders to drop the atomic bomb visually if possible, and after conferring with weaponeer Commander Frederick Ashworth (USN), flew on to Nagasaki, the secondary target.
A combination of factors including a malfunctioning transfer pump had made fuel consumption a critical factor. Ashworth did not want to be forced to dump the bomb into the sea and decided to make a radar bombing run if necessary. However, enough of an opening appeared in the cloud cover to allow Bombardier Kermit Beahan to confirm Nagasaki and the bomb was dropped, with ground zero being about ¾ mile from the planned aiming point. This combined with Nagasaki's position on the foothills(as opposed to Hiroshima's mostly flat terrain) resulted in lower overall casualties than in Hiroshima, with much of the blast confined in the Urakami Valley.
The B-29 did not have sufficient fuel to reach the emergency landing field at Iwo Jima, so Major Sweeney flew the aircraft to Okinawa, where, despite being unable to make contact with the control tower, he made a safe landing with virtually empty fuel tanks.
The more-often recognized B-29 Enola Gay preceded Bockscar in dropping a nuclear weapon on Japan. In the judgement of the USAAF command, the leveling of Nagasaki after the Hiroshima bombing demonstrated the US Armed Forces' willingness and ability [citation needed] to repeat this type of crippling aerial attack over and over again; however, there were no more atomic bombs immediately available.
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[edit] History of Bockscar
Bockscar, B-29-36-MO 44-27297, Victor Number 77, was assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron of the 509th Composite Group. The name painted on the aircraft after the mission (shown above) has no apostrophe and is painted in capital letters. It was named after the pilot of its regular crew, Frederick C. Bock. There was confusion over the name of the plane because initial press releases said that the second bomb had been dropped from The Great Artiste.[1] The Great Artiste was originally scheduled to drop the second bomb but it was fitted with observation instruments and there was not enough time to move the instrumentation from The Great Artiste to Bockscar. The crews of "The Great Artiste" and "Bockscar" switched planes resulting in the bomb being dropped by "Bockscar" flown by the crew of "The Great Artiste", which had trained for the bombing run. The press release states that the mission was flown in number 77, which was the Bockscar.[2]
One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th on Tinian, Bockscar was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Omaha, Nebraska at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, as a Block 35 aircraft. It was one of 10 modified as a Silverplate and re-designated "Block 36". Delivered on March 19, 1945, to the USAAF, it was flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, by its newly assigned crew. It left Wendover on June 11, 1945 for Tinian and arrived June 17, where it was assigned victor number 7, changed to 77 on August 1 for security reasons.
It returned to the United States in November 1945 and served with the 509th at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico, until August 1946, when it went into storage at Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, Arizona. It was flown to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, on September 26, 1961.
Bockscar is now on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio. This display includes a replica of the "Fat Man" bomb and signage that states that it was "The aircraft that ended WWII". This is in contrast to the display of Enola Gay at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, where little mention is made of that aircraft's role in WWII.
In 2005, a short documentary was made about Charles Sweeney's recollections of the Nagasaki mission aboard Bockscar, including details of the mission preparation, titled "Nagasaki: The Commander's Voice." [3]It was the last recording of Sweeney before his death in 2004.
[edit] Regularly assigned crew
Crew C-13 (manned "The Great Artiste" on the "Fat Man" mission)
- Capt. Frederick C. Bock, aircraft commander
- Lt. Hugh C. Ferguson, co-pilot
- Lt. Leonard A. Godfrey, navigator
- Lt. Charles Levy, bombardier
- Master Sgt. Roderick F. Arnold, flight engineer
- Sgt. Ralph D. Belanger, assistant flight engineer
- Sgt. Ralph D. Curry, radio operator
- Sgt. William C. Barney, radar operator
- Sgt. Robert J. Stock, tail gunner
[edit] "Fat Man" mission crew
Crew C-15 (normally assigned to The Great Artiste):
- Maj. Charles W. Sweeney, aircraft commander
- Capt. Charles Donald Albury, co-pilot (pilot of Crew C-15)
- 2nd Lt. Fred Olivi, additional co-pilot
- Capt. James Van Pelt, navigator
- Capt. Raymond "Kermit" Beahan, bombardier
- Sgt. Abe Spitzer, radio operator
- Master Sgt. John D. Kuharek, flight engineer
- Staff Sgt. Ray Gallagher, gunner, assistant flight engineer
- Staff Sgt. Edward Buckley, radar operator
- Sgt. Albert Dehart, tail gunner
Also on board were the following additional mission personnel:
- Cmdr. Frederick L. Ashworth (USN), weaponeer
- Lt. Philip Barnes (USN), assistant weaponeer
- 2nd Lt. Jacob Beser, radar countermeasures
[edit] References
- Campbell, Richard H., The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29's Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs (2005), ISBN 0-7864-2139-8
