Talk:Bockscar
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If the actual name is "Bockscar", shouldn't that be the name of the article? - Molinari 19:05, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Google thinks so:
- Bock's Car (795)
- Bocks Car (259)
- Bockscar (819)
That, combined with the fact that the US Air Force Museum Archives calls it "Bockscar" is good enough for me: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b3-35.htm -- Bill 19:12, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
[edit] "BOCK'S CAR"?
- As painted on the plane, the name is "BOCKS CAR"; there's a small but clear space between the S and C. In my opinion, since "Bockscar" and "Bocks Car" don't parse, and "[Frederick] Bock's Car" does--and probably was a pun on Boxcar--we should call it that. My guess is that the apostrophe went the way of Neil Armstrong's "a" in "That's one small step for [a] man,..."
- —wwoods 03
- 02, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In his book Mission : Hiroshima (originally published as The Tibbets Story) (Stein & Day, 1979, ISBN 0-8128-8169-9) Colonel Paul W. Tibbets refers to the aircraft as "Bock's Car" throughout. Is this not definitive?
Dawkeye 23:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
- I would say that the spelling used by the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where they have professional curators and try to be as accurate as possible, would be the best source. They use "Bockscar" [1]. --rogerd 17:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bocks Car
Well, I'll give a reason for the third possible choice: I think the spelling on the aircraft should be definitive, grammatical or not, most commonly used or not. So I think the article should be titled Bocks Car, although the space between S and C is pretty thin, more the absence of an overlap than an actual space.
In any case, I've put a link to the above image on the article page and edited it to leave it to the reader to decide whether there's a space in there. 207.176.159.90 00:03, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I agree, Bocks Car makes most sense. The Enola Gay was also all caps, but it is written in this format.
[edit] The Great Artiste
According to The Bomb: A Life, Bocks Car (or whatever the format) was the original name, after it's normal pilot, and it was renamed The Great Artiste by Sweeney but the name didn't stick. The line about manning the Great Artiste is confusing and seems to suggest that the plane flown by Bock on the Nagasaki mission was the The Great Artiste.--ragesoss 00:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
- I can't see any confusion. The intro quite clearly says "On the day of the attack Bockscar was manned by the crew of The Great Artiste and was commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney of Massachusetts." Also, it is probably more accurate to say Sweeney attempted to rename the aircraft, not that he actually did so. Does the book say exactly when the BOCKSCAR name was painted on the aircraft? Moriori 02:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
- The plane that flew the instrumentation missions for both Hiroshima and Nagasaki was already named the Great Artiste. The Great Artiste was originally scheduled to drop the second bomb, but when it was realised that there was not enough time to move the instrumentation from the Great Artiste to Bocks Car, the crews were swapped. The document at [2], which is an External link from the article, explains most of this. The initial press releases said that the second bomb had been dropped from the Great Artiste because that had been the plan.[3] Note that the press release states the mission was flown in no. 77, which was the BocksCar.[4] As for when the nose art was painted on Bocks Car, a photo taken right after the mission shows a clean nose; the nose art was added later. Unfortunately, I can't find the photo right now. -- Dalbury(Talk) 05:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
