Frederick Ashworth

Vice Admiral Frederick Lincoln "Dick" Ashworth (January 24, 1912 – December 3, 2005) was a United States Navy officer who served as the weaponeer on the B-29 Bockscar that dropped the atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945 during World War II.

Early life

A native of Beverly, Massachusetts, Ashworth graduated from Beverly High School in 1928. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1933.

Naval career

Holding the rank of commander, he became Director of Operations for Project Alberta, the portion of the Manhattan Project tasked with dropping of the weapons on Japan, and selected Tinian as the location of its operating airbase. The director of Project Alberta, Captain William Parsons, had been weaponeer during the first mission August 6, when Hiroshima had been bombed.

Prior to his being named to Project Alberta, Ashworth had been commander of Torpedo Squadron Eleven (VT-11), a Grumman TBF Avenger unit based on Guadalcanal and the USS Hornet.

Ashworth remained in the Navy after the war and was Commandant of Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in 1958. He was promoted to vice admiral and served as commander of the United States Sixth Fleet from 1966 until his retirement in 1968.

Retirement

Frederick L. Ashworth lived for over three decades in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He died in Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 93.

References

• Brown, Edward R. What Only Two Could Do: Frederick Lincoln Ashworth, a Beverly High School Graduate and the Delivery of the Atomic Bomb. Beverly, Mass.: Beverly Historical Society, 2006.

External links

• MPHPA Classic picture gallery- VADM Frederick Ashworth
• Obituary at Los Alamos National Laboratory