Operation Crossroads
There were only seven nuclear bombs in existence in July 1946. The two bombs used in the test were Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki. The "Able" bomb was stenciled with the name "Gilda" and decorated with an "Esquire" magazine photograph of Rita Hayworth, star of the 1946 movie, "Gilda". The "Baker" bomb was "Helen of Bikini." This femme-fatale theme for nuclear weapons, combining seduction and destruction, is epitomized by the use in all languages, starting in 1946, of "bikini" as the name for a woman's two-piece bathing suit.
Japan and weapons of mass destruction
The atomic age on Japan's southern islands began during the final weeks of the war when the U.S. Army Air Force launched two atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki from bases on Tinian in the Marianas Islands. Bockscar, the B-29 that dropped the Fat Man nuclear weapon on Nagasaki, landed at Yontan Airfield on Okinawa on August 9, 1945. The U.S. military immediately began constructing a second B-29 base and a facility for atom bomb processing in Okinawa to be completed in September 1945 that would open more targets in mainland Japan.