Bockscar

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BOCKSCAR, (occasionally Bock's Car or Bocks Car) is the name of the U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 bomber (Serial Number 44-27297) which dropped the second nuclear weapon ever used in warfare, on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. The weapon was known as "Fat Man". On the day of the attack Bockscar was manned by the crew of "The Great Artiste" and was commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney of Massachusetts.

Kokura was the intended target, but had been obscured by clouds. Maj. Sweeney had orders from the USAAF to drop the atomic bomb visually, and so he flew on to Nagasaki, a secondary target. Since the plane's fuel was getting low and Sweeney didn't want to dump the bomb into the Sea of Japan, he decided to make a radar bombing run. However, enough of an opening appeared in the cloud cover to allow the bombardier to confirm Nagasaki, and the bomb was dropped with ground zero being about 3/4 mile from the planned target. This resulted in lower overall casualties than would have been otherwise, as most of the blast was confined in the Urakami Valley.

The B-29 didn't have enough fuel to return to either Tinian or Iwo Jima, so Maj. Sweeney flew the aircraft to Okinawa for an emergency landing with practically dry fuel tanks.

The more-often recognized B-29 Enola Gay preceded BOCKS CAR in dropping a nuclear weapon on Japan. In the judgement of the USAAF command, the leveling of Nagasaki after the Hiroshima bombing demonstrated the US Armed Forces' willingness and ability to repeat this type of crippling aerial attack over and over again.

Many consider that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided the greatest impetus behind the subsequent Japanese surrender, thus bringing the fighting of World War II to an end. Others point to the fact that Japan had already been seeking capitulation by asking the Soviet Union to serve as a mediator, and contend that the two atomic bombings, irrespective of any moral considerations, at best only hastened Japan's final surrender.

This historic aircraft is sometimes referred to as "Bocks Car" or "Bock's Car". The name painted on the aircraft after the mission (above) has no apostrophe and it is painted in all capital letters. It was named after the pilot of its regular crew, Frederick C. Bock. There was confusion over the name of the plane, as the initial press releases said that the second bomb had been dropped from the Great Artiste.[1] The Great Artiste was originally scheduled to drop the second bomb, but when it was realised that there was not enough time to move the instrumentation from the Great Artiste to Bocks Car, the crews were swapped. The press release does state that the mission was flown in number 77, which was the BocksCar.[2]

BOCKS CAR is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. This display includes signage that states that it was "The aircraft that ended WWII". Image:BockscarDisplay.jpg Image:BockscarAndFatmanDisplay.jpg

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