Top Photo: Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay landing after the atomic bombing mission on Hiroshima, Japan. US Air Force Photo
As the Allies prepared to invade the Japanese home islands, any assault would be extremely costly for both Allied forces and the Japanese people. But with the success of the July Trinity test, the US was ready to leverage atomic weaponry to help end the carnage of the Pacific war.
The 509th Composite Group, led by 29-year-old Colonel Paul Tibbets, was assigned the task of dropping the atomic bombs. On August 6, 1945, Tibbets and the B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay took off from Able runway on the island of Tinian and headed for the coastal Japanese town of Hiroshima. Loaded in his bomb bay was a uranium-based weapon nicknamed “Little Boy.”
Tibbets arrived over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m., aimed for the T-shaped bridge at the city center, and dropped the weapon. Forty-three seconds later, at an altitude of 1,600 feet, the bomb exploded in a brilliant white flash. Much of Hiroshima vanished under a rising mushroom cloud. The ensuing explosion signaled the death of approximately 80,000 Japanese.
The Most Fearsome Sight: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
But the Japanese military showed no signs of surrender. Just days later, on August 9, 1945, a second B-29, nicknamed Bockscar and piloted by Captain Charles Sweeney, left Tinian carrying the plutonium-based bomb called “Fat Man.” Sweeney’s target was the Japanese city of Kokura, and he was directed to drop the weapon by visual means only. But when the plane arrived over its target, the city was obscured by haze and smoke. Bockscar moved on to its secondary target, the Japanese port city of Nagasaki.
Bockscar arrived over Nagasaki around 11:00 a.m. and dropped the bomb. The explosion killed approximately 60,000 Japanese. In Nagasaki, everything within a mile of ground zero was annihilated with immense heat, causing widespread fire. People close to the blast were vaporized, while others suffered horrific burns and fatal radiation poisoning. Running low on fuel, Sweeney headed for Okinawa and landed his bomber just as the fuel-starved engines shut down.
As a result of these two missions, and other wartime considerations, Japanese Emperor Hirohito determined that Japan’s war was over.
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