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. It was assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group.

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[link]

Bockscar was flown on August 9, 1945, by the crew of another B-29, The Great Artiste, and piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney, commander of the 393d BS. The plane was co-piloted by 1st Lt. Charles Donald Albury, the normal aircraft commander of Crew C-15.^[2] The Great Artiste was designated as the observation, instrumentation support plane for the second mission, and another B-29, The Big Stink, flown by Group Operations Officer Major James I. Hopkins, Jr., as the photographic aircraft. The mission had as its primary target the city of Kokura, Japan, and as its only secondary, Nagasaki.

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.^[3] The Great Artiste, which was the assigned aircraft of the crew with whom Sweeney most often flew, had been designated in preliminary planning to drop the second bomb, but it had been fitted with observation instruments for the Hiroshima mission.^[4] Moving the instrumentation from The Great Artiste to Bockscar would be a complex and time-consuming process, and when the second atomic bomb mission was moved up from August 11 to August 9 because of adverse weather forecasts, the crews of The Great Artiste and Bockscar instead exchanged aircraft. The result was that the bomb was carried by Bockscar but flown by the crew C-15 of The Great Artiste.^[4]

Following the mission, there was confusion over the identification of the plane.The first eyewitness account by war correspondent William L. Laurence of the New York Times, who accompanied the mission aboard the aircraft piloted by Bock, reported that Sweeney was leading the mission in The Great Artiste. However he also noted its "Victor" number as 77, which was that of Bockscar, writing that several personnel commented that 77 was also the jersey number of the football player Red Grange.^[5] Laurence 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 393d's B-29s had yet had names painted on the noses, a fact which Laurence himself noted in his account, and unaware of the switch in aircraft, Laurence assumed Victor 77 was The Great Artiste.^[6]

During pre-flight inspection of Bockscar, the flight engineer notified Sweeney that an inoperative fuel transfer pump made it impossible to use 625 gallons (2366 L) of fuel carried in a reserve tank, but Sweeney elected to have Bockscar continue the mission.^[7][8] Bockscar took off from Tinian's North Field at 3:45 a.m. carrying the plutonium bomb Fat Man. The mission profile directed the B-29's to fly individually to the rendezvous point, changed because of bad weather from Iwo Jima to Yakushima Island, and at 17,000 feet (5,200 m) cruising altitude instead of the customary 9,000 feet (2,700 m), increasing fuel consumption. Bockscar began its climb to the 30,000 feet (9,100 m) bombing altitude a half hour before rendezvous. Before the mission, Group Commander Col. Paul Tibbets warned Sweeney to take no more than fifteen minutes at the rendezvous before proceeding to the target.^[9] Bockscar reached the rendezvous point and assembled with The Great Artiste but after circling for some time, The Big Stink failed to appear.^[10] As they orbited Yakushima, the weather planes reported both Kokura and Nagasaki within the accepted parameters for the required visual attack.

Though ordered not to circle longer than fifteen minutes, Sweeney continued to wait for The Big Stink, perhaps at the urging of Commander Frederick Ashworth, the plane's weaponeer.^[11] After exceeding the original departure time limit by a half-hour, Bockscar, accompanied by the The Great Artiste, proceeded to Kokura, thirty minutes away.^[12] The delay at the rendezvous had resulted in clouds covering 70% of the area over Kokura, obscuring the aiming point. Three bomb runs were made over the next 50 minutes, burning fuel and exposing the aircraft repeatedly to the heavy defenses of nearby Yawata, but the bombardier was unable to drop visually.^[13] By the time of the third bomb run, Japanese antiaircraft fire was getting close, and Japanese fighter planes could be seen climbing to intercept Bockscar.^[14]

The mushroom cloud as seen from one of the B-29s on the mission.

The increasingly critical fuel shortage resulted in the decision by Sweeney and Ashworth to reduce power to conserve fuel and divert to the secondary target, Nagasaki.^[15] The approach to Nagasaki twenty minutes later indicated that the heart of the city's downtown was also covered by dense cloud. Ashworth decided to bomb Nagasaki using radar,^[16] but a small opening in the clouds at the end of the three-minute bomb run permitted Bockscar's bombardier, Capt. Kermit Beahan, to identify target features.^[17] Bockscar visually dropped Fat Man at 11:01 a.m. It exploded 43 seconds later with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT at an altitude of 1,650 feet (503 meters) above ground, approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km) northwest of the planned aiming point.^[18][19] The failure to drop Fat Man at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, but even so, 60% of Nagasaki was destroyed and approximately 70,000 people killed in the explosion. Japan surrendered six days later.

Because of the delays in the mission and the inoperative fuel transfer pump, the B-29 did not have sufficient fuel to reach the emergency landing field at Iwo Jima, so Sweeney flew the aircraft to Okinawa. Arriving there, he circled for 20 minutes trying to contact the control tower for landing clearance, finally concluding that his radio was faulty. Critically low on fuel, Bockscar barely made it to the runway on Okinawa's Yontan Airfield. With only enough fuel for one landing attempt, Sweeney and Albury brought Bockscar in at 150 mph (241 km/h) instead of the normal 120 mph (193 km/h), firing distress flares to alert the field of the uncleared landing.^[20] The number two engine died from fuel starvation as Bockscar began its final approach.^[21] Touching the runway hard, the heavy B-29 slewed left and towards a row of parked B-24 bombers before the pilots managed to regain control.^[22] The B-29's reversible propellers were insufficient to slow the aircraft adequately, and with both pilots standing on the brakes, Bockscar made a swerving 90-degree turn at the end of the runway to avoid running off the runway. 2nd Lt. Jacob Beser recalled "the centrifugal force resulting from the turn was almost enough to put us through the side of the airplane." A second engine died from fuel exhaustion by the time the plane came to a stop. The flight engineer later measured fuel in the tanks and concluded that less than five minutes total remained.

After Bockscar returned to Tinian later that night, Col. Tibbets recorded that he was faced with the dilemma of considering “if any action should be taken against the airplane commander, Charles Sweeney, for failure to command.”^[23][24][25] After meeting on Guam with Col. Tibbets and Major Sweeney, General Curtis LeMay, chief of staff for the Strategic Air Forces, confronted Sweeney, stating "You fucked up, didn't you, Chuck?", to which Sweeney made no reply.^[26] LeMay then turned to Tibbets and told him that an investigation into Sweeney's conduct of the mission would serve no useful purpose.^[27]

Airplane history[link]

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 393d Bomb Squadron of the 509th Composite Group. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, 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.^[28]

It left Wendover on 11 June 1945 for Tinian and arrived 16 June. It was originally given the Victor (unit-assigned identification) 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.^[29]

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 Koromo.^[30]

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 Army Air Force 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,^[31] and its original markings were restored before the aircraft was put on display.^[32]

Current status[link]

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 World War II.

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." ^[33]

Crewmembers[link]

Regularly assigned crew[link]

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[link]

Crew C-15. front row: Dehart, Kuharek, Buckley, Gallagher, Spitzer; 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) ^[2]
• 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[link]

See also[link]

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

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

Coordinates: 39°46′55″N 84°06′32″W / 39.781976°N 84.108892°W / 39.781976; -84.108892