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.
Jacob Beser
On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb to be used in combat was dropped by a B-29 Superfortress bomber, the "Enola Gay", over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. The thirteen-hour mission to Hiroshima under the command of famous pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets, began at 0245 Tinian time. By the time the "Enola Gay" rendezvoused with its two accompanying B-29 Superfortresses at 0607 over Iwo Jima, the group was three hours from the target area. "Little Boy's" detonation was triggered by radar sensors on the bomb that measured its altitude as it fell. Beser's job was to monitor those sensors and ensure that there was no interference that could have detonated it prematurely. The bomb fell away from the aircraft at 09:15:17 Tinian time. Beser did not watch the bomb detonate but he heard the bomb's radar signals switch on and then cut off at the moment the intense light generated by its detonation filled the plane.