Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
The atomic bomb was developed by scientists working under the Manhattan Project. The project was granted funding on December 6, 1941, with American leaders aiming for a new invention that would serve as a wartime weapon. The decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan had been made by 1943, and a shortlist of candidate target cities was in place in 1945. At the time, it was argued that an atomic bombing would bring about a more rapid end to the war. Hiroshima, the first target, was selected to show the power of America's new weapon. The second bombing, of Nagasaki, was intended to demonstrate that the USA had a large arsenal. At 11:02 A.M. local time on August 9, 1945, the atomic bomb, nicknamed Fat Man as its code name by Robert Serber in the United States (after Sydney Greenstreet's character in "The Maltese Falcon") was dropped on Nagasaki, forever changing the city's landscape. A mushroom cloud rose to an altitude of 45,000 feet above the city.
Enola Gay
The Hiroshima mission was followed by another atomic strike. Originally scheduled for 11 August, it was brought forward by two days to 9 August owing to a forecast of bad weather. This time, a Fat Man nuclear weapon was carried by B-29 "Bockscar", piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney. "Enola Gay", flown by Captain George Marquardt's Crew B-10, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura, the primary target. "Enola Gay" reported clear skies over Kokura, but by the time "Bockscar" arrived, the city was obscured by smoke from fires from the conventional bombing of Yahata by 224 B-29s the day before. After three unsuccessful passes, "Bockscar" diverted to its secondary target, Nagasaki, where it dropped its bomb. In contrast to the Hiroshima mission, the Nagasaki mission has been described as tactically botched, although the mission did meet its objectives. The crew encountered a number of problems in execution, and had very little fuel by the time they landed at the emergency backup landing site Yontan Airfield on Okinawa.