The events of the Nagasaki atomic bomb incident

On August 9, 1945, the second airdrop mission fell to the Sweeney crew of the 509th Composite Group. Sweeney once led his crew to fly the Maestro observation aircraft on a bombing effect observation mission during the bombing of Hiroshima. Since the Maestro still retains scientific instruments this time, it will be used as an observation machine again. Sweeney had no choice but to use another B-29 aircraft, the Bock Car, as the atomic bomb carrier. At 3:39 a.m. on August 9, the Bock car loaded with Fatty took off from Tinian Airport and flew to Japan. Sweeney prayed again and again that he might be as lucky as Paul Tibbetts.

However, things did not go smoothly. Shortly after the plane took off, it was discovered that one of the fuel tanks had malfunctioned and 600 gallons of fuel might not be usable. Sweeney made a rough estimate of the distance, believed that the fuel was basically enough, and decided to continue flying. When Bok's car flew to the rendezvous point over Iwo Jima, two other observation and photography aircraft that had taken off early were supposed to be waiting to rendezvous with him there, but he only encountered one of them. Sweeney waited there for 30 minutes but still found no sign of the other aircraft, so he resolutely flew towards Kokura. At 9:05, Bock's car flew over Kokura. The weather conditions above Kokura were very poor that day, with thick clouds in the sky, thick smoke billowing on the ground, and extremely low visibility. Bock's car hovered over Kokura for 3 weeks, but still failed to find the aiming point - Arsenal No. 5. At this time, Kokura's ground anti-aircraft troops fired intensive anti-aircraft fire, and Sweeney had to increase his flying altitude. When Sweeney decided to enter the sky above Kokura again to search for targets, he received a report from the radio operator: Judging from the intercepted frequencies used by Japanese interceptor aviation, there may be fighter jets taking off to intercept. There was panic on the plane. Sweeney turned the plane around and flew southwest before he could contact the base. He decided to bomb Nagasaki instead. After leaving Kokura, he ordered a report to the base: bombs could not be dropped over Kokura and bombed Nagasaki instead. At 10:28, the plane arrived over Nagasaki. It happened that it was also cloudy in Nagasaki that day, and the target was not found even when entering the sky over Nagasaki for the first time. The pointer of the fuel gauge dropped sharply, and Sweeney was extremely nervous. He decided to drop Fat Man no matter what when entering for the second time, so he announced to the crew on board: "Switch to radar targeting, prepare to drop bombs, and return."

Bombardier Kermit Behan was a veteran like Fiabi. When he was about to switch to the radar instrument for aiming, he suddenly found a large gap between the two clouds below him. The aiming point could be clearly seen through the gap. He immediately informed Sweeney that visual bombing could be carried out. At 10:58, "Fat Man" broke away from "Bock's Car" and flew to Nagasaki.

After the bomb was dropped, the "Bock's Car" was seriously low on fuel and had to make an emergency landing in Okinawa on the way back to replenish fuel. "Bock's Car" returned to Tinian Island very late after a 20-hour flight. The explosion yield of "Fat Man" was greater than that of "Little Boy", but the terrain of Nagasaki was surrounded by mountains on three sides, so the damage was less than that of Hiroshima.

At 11:02 am, following the attack on Hiroshima, the US military carried out the second atomic bomb attack on Japan. A commando team composed of five B-29 bombers dropped the atomic bomb "Fat Man" into downtown Nagasaki. "Fat Man" is a plutonium bomb, about 3.6 meters long, 1.5 meters in diameter, weighing about 4.9 tons, with a TNT yield of 22,000 tons and an explosion height of 503 meters. The bombing caused more than 100,000 casualties and missing persons out of a population of 230,000 in Nagasaki City that day, and 60% of the city's buildings were destroyed.