Bockscar

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Bockscar nose art. The "fat man" silhouettes represent four pumpkin bomb missions (black) and the atomic bomb drop on Nagasaki (a red symbol, fourth in the line of five symbols).
Bockscar nose art. The "fat man" silhouettes represent four pumpkin bomb missions (black) and the atomic bomb drop on Nagasaki (a red symbol, fourth in the line of five symbols).

Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car or Bocks Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped the "Fat Man" nuclear weapon over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the second atomic weapon used against Japan.

The name painted on the aircraft after the mission (shown here) is a pun on "boxcar" after the name of its aircraft commander, Captain Frederick C. Bock.[1]

Contents

[edit] Atomic bomb mission

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 509th Composite Group's[2] only bomber squadron, the 393d. The Great Artiste, which was the assigned aircraft of the crew with whom Sweeney most often flew, was slotted in preliminary planning to drop the second bomb, but it had been fitted with observation instruments for the Hiroshima mission.[3]

Bockscar had been flown by Sweeney and crew C-15 in three test drop rehearsals of inert "Fat Man" assemblies in the eight days leading up to the second mission, including the final rehearsal the day before.[4] Rather than move the instrumentation from The Great Artiste to Bockscar, a complex and time-consuming process, the crews of The Great Artiste and Bockscar switched planes. The result was that the bomb was dropped by Bockscar, flown by the crew C-15 of The Great Artiste.[3]

There was confusion over the name of the plane because an initial eyewitness account by reporter William L. Laurence of the New York Times said that the second bomb had been dropped from The Great Artiste.[5] Laurence, who accompanied the mission as part of Bock's crew, had interviewed Sweeney and his crew in depth and was aware that they referred to their airplane as The Great Artiste. Except for Enola Gay, none of the 393rd's B-29s had yet had names painted on the noses, and unaware of the switch in aircraft, Laurence assumed victor 77 was The Great Artiste.[6]

Kokura was the primary target, but when Bockscar arrived at its rendezvous point off the coast of Japan the third aircraft of its flight (the photo ship Big Stink) was not present. After fruitlessly 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 three unsuccessful passes over Kokura, conferred with weaponeer Commander Frederick Ashworth (USN). They agreed to strike the secondary target, Nagasaki.[7]

A combination of factors including confusion about a malfunctioning transfer pump 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.[8] 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 3/4 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.[9]

Because of the delays in the mission, 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.[7]

[edit] Airplane history

B-29-35-MO 44-27297 "Bockscar." On the Nagasaki mission, it flew without nose art and with a triangle N tail marking, rather than the circle arrowhead shown here.
B-29-35-MO 44-27297 "Bockscar." On the Nagasaki mission, it flew without nose art and with a triangle N tail marking, rather than the circle arrowhead shown here.

Bockscar, B-29-36-MO 44-27297, victor number 77, was assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron of the 509th Composite Group. 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 assigned to Capt. Frederick C. Bock and crew C-13 and flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah.[10]

It left Wendover on June 11, 1945 for Tinian and arrived June 16. It was originally given the victor number 7 but on August 1 was given the triangle N tail markings of the 444th Bomb Group as a security measure and had its victor changed to 77 to avoid misidentification with an actual 444th aircraft.[11]

Bockscar was also used in 13 training and practice missions from Tinian, and three combat missions in which it dropped pumpkin bombs on industrial targets in Japan. Bock's crew bombed Niihama and Musashino, and 1st Lt. Don Albury and crew C-15 bombed Toyama.[12]

It returned to the United States in November 1945 and served with the 509th at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. It was nominally assigned to the Operation Crossroads task force but there are no records indicating that it deployed for the tests. In August 1946 it was assigned to the 4105th Base Unit at Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, Arizona, for storage.

At Davis-Monthan it was placed on display as the aircraft that bombed Nagasaki, but in the markings of The Great Artiste. In September 1946 title was passed to the Air Force Museum (now the National Museum of the United States Air Force) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, but it was not moved there until September 26, 1961, where its original markings were restored.[13]

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." [14]

[edit] Regularly assigned crew

Crew C-13 (manned "The Great Artiste" on the Nagasaki 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] Nagasaki mission crew

Crew C-15. front row: Dehart, Kuharek, Buckley, Gallagher, Spizer; back row: Olivi, Beahan, Sweeney, Van Pelt, Albury
Crew C-15. front row: Dehart, Kuharek, Buckley, Gallagher, Spizer; back row: Olivi, Beahan, Sweeney, Van Pelt, Albury

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, regular co-pilot
  • Capt. James Van Pelt, navigator
  • Capt. Raymond "Kermit" Beahan, bombardier
  • Master Sgt. John D. Kuharek, flight engineer
  • Staff Sgt. Ray Gallagher, gunner, assistant flight engineer
  • Staff Sgt. Edward Buckley, radar operator
  • Sgt. Abe Spitzer, radio operator
  • Sgt. Albert Dehart, tail gunner

Also on board were the following additional mission personnel:

[edit] National Museum of the United States Air Force display

[edit] References

  1. ^ USAF Museum - Bockscar Story Fact Sheet
  2. ^ 509th CG Aircraft Page, MPHPA
  3. ^ a b Reflections from above. University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Retrieved on 9 May 2007.
  4. ^ Richard H. Campbell (2005). The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs. McFarland & Company, Inc.. ISBN 0-7864-2139-8. , 113-114.
  5. ^ Eyewitness account of atomic bombing over Nagasaki. Atomic Archive.com. Retrieved on 9 May 2007.
  6. ^ Campbell, 222 Appendix G note 13.
  7. ^ a b Timeline #3- the 509th; The Nagasaki Mission. The Atomic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved on 5 May, 2007.
  8. ^ Spitzer Personal Diary Page 25 (CGP-ASPI-025). The Atomic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved on 5 May, 2007.
  9. ^ Dennis D. Wainstock (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Praeger, 92. 
  10. ^ Campbell, 172.
  11. ^ Campbell, 19.
  12. ^ Campbell, 113, 139, 142.
  13. ^ Campbell, 172-173.
  14. ^ Last recording of Sweeney before his death in 2004

[edit] See also

[edit] External links