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.
First Into Nagasaki
On August 3, 1945 "New York Times" had carried the front page headline "BOMBERS FIRE GREAT NAGASAKI SHIPYARDS" and a page one story beginning "Nagasaki, one of the three major shipbuilding centers of Japan and ninth port of the empire, was left aflame yesterday, its dockyards smashed and its harbor littered with sunken ships by over 250 planes of General George C. Kenney's Far East Air Force." The article continues with a full description of the air battle over Nagasaki, and the destruction of oil tanks, ships, warehouses and railyard. The raid of August 2, 1945 included Mitchell and Liberator bombers as well as Thunderbolt and Mustang fighter planes. Weller's assertion published in 1967 is not consistent with this prominent, lengthy and detailed "New York Times" coverage, nor with his own assertion published in 2006 at the end of the very first dispatch datelined Nagasaki (September 6, 1945 2300 hours) that the city had had "one earlier serious raid."