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Charles William Sweeney (27 December 1919 – 16 July 2004) was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and the pilot who flew Bockscar carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb to the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
The mission included three B-29 bombers and their crews: Bockscar, The Great Artiste and The Big Stink. Bockscar was flown on 9 August 1945 by Crew C-15, which usually manned The Great Artiste; piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney, commander of the 393d Bombardment Squadron; and co-piloted by First Lieutenant Charles Donald Albury, C-15's aircraft commander. [7]
The city was found to be covered in smoke and haze, however; as a result, the plane's pilot, Major Charles Sweeney, decided to attack the secondary target of Nagasaki instead. The bomb was dropped at 10:58 am local time, and the resulting 20 kiloton explosion destroyed 1.45 square miles (3.8 km 2) of buildings in the Urakami district.
Weighing 14 pounds and responsible for 80,000 deaths, the heart of the "Fat Man" atomic bomb was detonated on August 9, 1945, over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Related: Iconic photos from WWII:
The atomic bomb explosion generated a windstorm several kilometers wide that carried ash, dust, and debris over the mountain ranges surrounding Nagasaki. Approximately 20 minutes after the bombing, a black rain with the consistency of mud or oil came down carrying radioactive material for one to two hours before turning clear.
The radioactive plume from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki City, as seen from 9.6km away in Koyagi-jima (Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum/Getty) “I was lying down reading a book and then suddenly there ...
That day, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar, commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, departed from Tinian's North Field just before dawn, this time carrying a plutonium bomb, code named "Fat Man". The primary target for the bomb was Kokura , with the secondary target being Nagasaki, if the primary target was too cloudy to make a visual sighting.
This time, a nuclear bomb code-named "Fat Man" was carried by B-29 Bockscar, piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney. [26] Enola Gay , flown by Captain George Marquardt's Crew B-10, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura , the primary target. [ 27 ]