![]() Over Kokura, clouds and smoke from nearby bombing raids obscured visibility. The Enola Gay took part in the mission, flying weather reconnaissance. Bock, piloted Sweeney’s usual mount christened “The Great Artiste.” The two men had switched aircraft as “The Great Artiste” held the sensitive measuring equipment used to monitor the atomic event. Sweeney flew the plane while its namesake, Captain Fredrick C. In its belly was Fat Man, and the atomic bomb was already armed. Courtesy US Army Air Force.Ī B-29 named Bock’s Car took off from Tinian at 3:47 that morning. Reports of approaching bad weather convinced the Americans to drop the next bomb on August 9. The decision to use Fat Man just days after the explosion of Little Boy at Hiroshima was based on two calculations: the always-changeable Japanese weather-the appearance of a typhoon or other major weather event could force deployment to be postponed for weeks-and the belief that two bombings following in quick succession would convince the Japanese that the Americans had plenty of atomic devices and were ready to keep using them until Japan finally surrendered. The scientists and ordnance experts at Los Alamos had agonized for years over how to use plutonium in an atomic weapon, and Fat Man was the result. This was a plutonium implosion device of far greater complexity than the Little Boy bomb used at Hiroshima, which used uranium-235 in a fairly conventional explosive mechanism. Like Kokura and Hiroshima, it had not suffered much thus far from American conventional bombing.Īfter the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, workers on Tinian island labored intensely to put the finishing touches on the Fat Man bomb and prepare it for use. Nagasaki also was an important port city. It was larger, with an approximate population of 263,000 people, and some major military facilities, including two Mitsubishi military factories. The third choice, Nagasaki was a port city located about 100 miles from Kokura. That was one of the reasons the Target Committee thought it would be a good option after Hiroshima. ![]() The Americans knew all this, but strangely had not targeted the city yet in their conventional bombing campaign. In Kokura, a city of 130,000 people on the island of Kyushu, the Japanese operated one of their biggest ordnance factories, manufacturing among other things chemical weapons. Instead they identified Kokura as the second target after Hiroshima. The Target Committee appointed by President Harry Truman to decide which Japanese cities would receive the Little Boy and Fat Man atomic bombings did not place Nagasaki among their top two choices. ![]()
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