Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
"Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) was the type of nuclear weapon the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second and largest of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the first being Little Boy , and its detonation marked the third nuclear explosion in history.
On 9 August 1945, Bockscar, piloted by the 393d Bombardment Squadron's commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, dropped the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT over the city of Nagasaki. About 44% of the city was destroyed; 35,000 people were killed and 60,000 injured.
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 test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Concerns about whether the complex Fat Man design would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test.
The bomb development culminates in a detonation in south-central New Mexico at the Trinity Site in the Alamogordo Desert (05:29:45 on July 16, 1945), where everyone watched in awe at the spectacle of the first mushroom cloud with roaring winds, even miles away. Both bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, were successful, ushering in the Atomic Age.
At 03:47 Tinian time (GMT+10), 02:47 Japanese time, [127] on the morning of 9 August 1945, Bockscar, flown by Sweeney's crew, lifted off from Tinian island with the Fat Man, with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target. The mission plan for the second attack was nearly identical to that of the Hiroshima mission, with two ...
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.
Although Project Alberta had no attack orders, it proceeded with the plan to have the Little Boy ready by 1 August 1945 and the first Fat Man ready for use as soon as possible after that. [33] In the meantime, a series of twelve combat missions were flown between 20 and 29 July against targets in Japan using high-explosive Pumpkin bombs. [34]