Bock, Jr.'s plane Bock's Car, while Bock's crew switched to The Great Artiste.Ī typhoon was threatening Iwo Jima, the mission rendezvous point. So Sweeney and his crew took over Captain Frederick C.
But The Great Artiste was still outfitted with scientific gear left over from being the support plane for the Hiroshima mission and there wasn't time to outfit it to carry Fat Man. Sweeny was to command the mission in his plane The Great Artiste. There was some confusion at the outset of the Nagasaki mission. That day, when one would have expected all attention to be focused on the Nagasaki strike, yet another ceremony took place to honor Tibbets and the crew of the Enola Gay. Originally scheduled for August 11, 1945, the mission was advanced to August 9 due to weather concerns. The Nagasaki mission couldn't have been more different. Following the ceremony the fliers were feted at a star-studded debriefing where General LeMay told the men, "Kids, go eat, take a good shower, and sleep as much as you want!" was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General Spaatz. The crew was greeted by an excited crowd. The Enola Gay landed uneventfully at Tinian. The flight was uneventful, the weather cooperated, and, at 8:15 A.M. On August 6, 1945, The Enola Gay lifted off from Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas at two A.M. When a second mission was approved, Kokura was the primary target Nagasaki was the secondary target. Stimson against the advice of General Groves, the Manhattan Project's military leader). The Target Committee at Los Alamos selected Hiroshima as one of five possible targets for the first mission, along with Yokohama, Kokura, Niigata, and the city of temples, Kyoto (which was subsequently eliminated at the insistence of Secretary of War Henry L. From the beginning the mission that resulted in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima overshadowed Nagasaki.