Bockscar

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 9 August 1945, the second atomic weapon used against Japan.

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

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 plane was copiloted by Captain Charles Albury.^[3] 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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[4]

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.^[6] 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.^[7]

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.^[8]

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.^[9] 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.^[10]

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.^[8]

Airplane history

B-29-35-MO AAF Ser. No. 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's temporary tail marking for the atomic bombing mission on August 9, 1945.

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 Bellevue, 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 19 March 1945, to the USAAF, it was assigned to Capt. Frederick C. Bock and crew C-13 and flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah.^[11]

It left Wendover on 11 June 1945 for Tinian and arrived 16 June. It was originally given the victor number 7 but on 1 August 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.^[12]

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.^[13]

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. The aircraft was flown to the Museum on 26 September 1961,^[14] and its original markings were restored before the aircraft was put on display.^[15]

Current status

Bockscar is now on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio. This display, a primary exhibit in the Museum's Air Power gallery, 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." ^[16]

Crewmembers

Regularly assigned crew

Crew C-13 (manned The Great Artiste on the Nagasaki mission)

• Capt Frederick C. Bock, aircraft commander
• 1st Lt Hugh C. Ferguson, co-pilot
• 1st Lt Leonard A. Godfrey, navigator
• 1st Lt Charles Levy, bombardier
• Master Sergeant 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

Nagasaki mission crew

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) ^[3]
• 2nd Lt Fred Olivi, regular co-pilot
• Capt James van Pelt, navigator
• Capt Kermit Beahan, bombardier
• Master Sergeant John D. Kuharek, flight engineer
• SSgt Ray Gallagher, gunner, assistant flight engineer
• SSgt Edward Buckley, radar operator
• Sgt Abe Spitzer, radio operator
• Sgt Albert Dehart, tail gunner

Also on board were the following additional mission personnel:

• CDR Frederick L. Ashworth (USN), weaponeer
• LT Philip Barnes (USN), assistant weaponeer
• 2nd Lt Jacob Beser, radar countermeasures

National Museum of the United States Air Force display

See also

• Enola Gay
• White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007)

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links