What was the name of the plane that dropped the (second) atomic bomb on Nagasaki?
The B-29 Superfortress was named “Bock’s Car” by Commander Frederick Bock, and was piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, the only man to fly in both of the atomic missions during World War II. On August 9, 1945, “Bock’s Car” departed the tiny island of Tinian in the South Pacific, overcame a series of technical difficulties, and dropped the plutonium-based bomb nicknamed “Fat Man” on Nagasaki. The original (primary) target had been the city of Kokura, but it was bypassed due to heavy cloud cover. At Nagasaki, the bomb, equivalent to 22,000 tons of TNT, destroyed nearly half the city and killed over 25,000 persons, with another estimated 45,000 later killed by radiation poisoning.
