Charles Sweeney
Poor bombing visibility and an increasingly critical fuel shortage eventually forced "Bockscar" to divert from Kokura and attack the secondary target, Nagasaki. As they approached Nagasaki, the heart of the city's downtown was covered by dense cloud, and Sweeney and the plane's weaponeer, Commander Ashworth, initially decided to bomb Nagasaki using radar. However, a small opening in the clouds allowed "Bockscar's" bombardier to verify the target as Nagasaki. As the crew had been ordered to drop the bomb visually if possible, Sweeney decided to proceed with a visual bomb run. "Bockscar" then dropped "Fat Man", with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. It exploded 43 seconds later at above the ground, at least northwest of the planned aim point. The failure to drop "Fat Man" at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, and only 60% of Nagasaki was destroyed. The bombing also severed the Mitsubishi arms production extensively and killed an estimated 35,000-40,000 people outright, including 23,200-28,200 Japanese industrial workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese soldiers.
First Into Nagasaki
The "Miami Herald" article incorrectly states atomic POW casualties "Forty-eight were killed instantly and four others died later." while Dispatch #5 states "Forty-eight were wounded, four instantly killed, and four, including Aalders, died." The incorrect POW casualty figures also appear in Weller's "Los Angeles Times" article of September 16, 1945 and his "New York Post" article of September 15, 1945, and his article in the "Akron Beacon Journal" headlined "Yank Saw Atom Bomb Wipe Out Nagasaki" and above that "It Was 'Terrific, White Flash'" September 15, 1945 (this article includes interviews "supra" from Dispatch#1, Dispatch#5, and Dispatch#8). The Associated Press' Vernon Haugland quotes Dr. Vink "only four of our 200 prisoners were killed"[outright when the bomb exploded; four more died subsequently] in article published widely, including in the "New York Times" and on September 10, 1945 in the "Miami Herald". Thus papers in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, and Akron all print Weller's incorrect casualty statistics, whilst Dispatch#5 gives correct data, as does the Associated Press in 1945.