War’s End

EIGHTEEN

IN THE AIR-CONDITIONED hut we called “the shed,” assembly of the third and last atomic weapon in the United States arsenal, the Mark III combat unit F31, Model Y 1561, had been proceeding over the past few days; its fraternal twin had exploded to life three weeks earlier on a hundred-foot tower at Alamogordo. The Fat Man, named because of its rotund shape, was more complicated than the primitive Little Boy—and more powerful: twenty-three kilotons, 46 million pounds, of TNT. Instead of having the gun-barrel design of Little Boy, Fat Man was an implosion device. A solid core of precision-machined plutonium was surrounded by finely shaped lenses of high explosives placed in a precise configuration around the core to ensure an instantaneous symmetrical implosion. Plutonium, which emits alpha particles, is warm to the touch, as if it is a living thing. The implosion would compress the plutonium sphere in a nanosecond to a critical mass that would then start a chain reaction and nuclear explosion. All of the explosive lenses had to detonate simultaneously. An infinitesimal delay in any lens would result in a big bang, but no nuclear explosion. The numerous and interconnected mechanical and electrical systems necessary to accomplish this result had to be painstakingly set into the confines of the bomb casing, together with the multiple and redundant fuses and switches required to detonate the explosive charges.

To make the bomb live, four sets of fuses would be installed: barometric, timing, radar, and impact. The four different kinds of fuses would be used for redundancy. There would be two fuses of each kind—again, for redundancy. Only the impact fuses would detonate when the bomb hit the ground. The last resort. Ideally, all six of the other fuses would activate at 1,890 feet: the barometric fuses were set to detonate when the bomb reached 1,890 feet; the timing fuses would detonate forty-three seconds after release, at which point the bomb would have reached 1,890 feet; the radar fuses would receive echoes from the ground at 1,890 feet and detonate. The scientists had toiled over the fuse function for so long, they nearly ended up throwing in the kitchen sink for insurance.

After the fuses were installed, the two half spheres of the bomb casing would be bolted together and the 550-pound tail section would be attached to the casing.

Because the entire assembly was so complicated, the plutonium bomb would have to be armed and live when it was loaded onto the airplane. There would be no way to arm it in flight, as Captain Parsons had armed Little Boy on the Hiroshima mission. Thus, my crew and I would be rolling down the runway with a live, 10,300-pound plutonium bomb, and because of its weight, there would be just barely enough runway to gain the proper airspeed. If we crashed on takeoff, we could obliterate the island.

Even before the technicians made Fat Man live, it was an extremely dangerous unit to be around. The quantity of high explosives laid in around the plutonium core made the unit the largest conventional bomb in our inventory. Inside, over 5,000 pounds of two types of high-grade explosives, Baratol and Composition B, surrounded the nickel- and gold-coated orange-size eleven-pound sphere of plutonium, whose density was nine ounces per cubic inch. At its center was a pea-size ball of polonium and beryllium, the initiator that would commence the chain reaction by releasing neutrons when the compressing sphere of plutonium crushed in on it.

A single spark, or even heat generated by friction, could set off the explosives inside the bomb and wipe away the assembly hut and most of what surrounded it. To reduce friction, baby powder was dusted onto some parts that might rub against other components during assembly. In addition to having air-conditioning, the entire shed had a specially rubberized floor grounded by a copper wire grid system to prevent an accidental explosion from a spark or any other source of heat. All personnel had to wear rubberized shoes in the shed and move about carefully and deliberately. This slowed the progress of the work and added to the tension.

Hours before the bomb was to be transported to the loading area, the assembly crew encountered a snag that would have been comical except for the circumstances. It was discovered that holes on the bomb casing and the tail section had been improperly drilled, making it impossible to align the two components and bolt them together. Many a father had confronted similar problems on Christmas Eve when trying to assemble cheaply made toys for his children. However, this was no toy, and it had cost two billion dollars. Cool prevailed, and without missing a beat, a technician with a metal file labored to scrape away enough of the aluminum plating on the fins to enlarge the holes so that the sections could be joined by the bolts.

* * *

I had already decided that because all the delicate measuring instruments we had carried on the Hiroshima mission were still installed in my airplane, The Great Artiste, it made no sense to have the ground crews and technicians work through the day to remove the instruments, reinstall them in another B-29, and then recalibrate them. Instead, I would take Fat Man in Fred Bock’s airplane, the Bock’s Car, with my crew, and he would fly The Great Artiste, with his crew.

However, on August 8, I would fly The Great Artiste one more time before the mission. The scientists were finally ready with a new improved fuse. The last fusing test at Wendover had resulted in a premature detonation right below the belly of my airplane. Similar problems had occurred when we flew practice drops there at Tinian. My feeling was that I trusted the brilliance of these scientists. I had confidence in them. If they wanted to use a round fuse today and a square one tomorrow, then that was fine with me.

I was to take a concrete-filled pumpkin to 30,000 feet and release it over the ocean off shore of Tinian. Alberta staff, including Luis Alvarez and Norman Ramsey, lined the shore to observe the pumpkin and the fuse, which was set to detonate at 1,890 feet. A small charge would explode with a visible puff of smoke.

At mid-morning I arrived at the initial point to commence the bomb run. Beahan activated the thirty-second tone signal. Just as we would do the next day when the tone stopped, Kermit yelled, “Bomb away,” and I took the airplane into a sharp 155-degree turn. The bomb raced in its forward arc toward the designated altitude of 1,890 feet. A puff of smoke plumed into the sun-drenched tropical sky. The fuse had detonated. The inert pumpkin plopped harmlessly into the ocean.

The test, we later learned from the scientists, had been successful. I guess that was good news, considering that in less than twenty-four hours we would be taking the actual bomb—fuses and all—on board with us to Japan.

I had tasks to attend to as the command pilot for Special Bombing Mission Number 16, the military designation for our mission. After lunch, I drove over to the hardstand to chat with the crew chief and his men, who were busily checking and rechecking all systems on the Bock’s Car. Basically, I kicked the tires, just wanting to make my presence felt. Those guys were the best, and I knew they would have the airplane in tiptop shape well before takeoff.

At two P.M., Beahan, Albury, Van Kirk, and I attended a briefing to study the maps and reconnaissance photographics of the two possible targets for our mission, Kokura and Nagasaki. For the last week we had studied those very same maps and photos, which, until August 5, had included Hiroshima. We knew these cities as well as we knew our own hometowns, perhaps better. Every inch of them—streets, buildings, bridges, factories, rivers, lakes—was committed to our memories. We walked through every sequence of the bomb runs at each city. The intelligence officers in attendance reviewed the latest information about antiaircraft emplacements, intensity of fire, and potential fighter intercepts at each target.

We could expect significant antiaircraft fire at Kokura, where heavy industries were concentrated. The target would be the Kokura army arsenal, the primary source supplying the Japanese army. It sat smack in the heart of the city. The Japanese war effort depended on keeping factories like this operating. Ringing the city were concentrated and well-placed antiaircraft batteries that could throw up a withering hail of flak. Kokura also had fighter protection to intercept incoming bombers.

Nagasaki was another industrial base, home to two massive Mitsubishi armament plants. It was defended, but with far less concentration. I looked at the Nagasaki field orders: FIELD ORDERS, NUMBER 17, 8 AUGUST 1945—(2) Secondary Target: 90.36 Nagasaki Urban Area.

I located the coordinates on the aviation chart of Japan in front of me. Pressing my finger to the chart at Nagasaki, I saw that the city sat in two valleys split in the middle by a low range of hills. Although residential and commercial districts lay in the flat land surrounding the large harbor where Nagasaki’s shipbuilding and torpedo factories were located, maximum blast effect could be achieved only by dropping over this flat area below the range of hills.

My first reaction to the aiming point was that the casualties could be even greater than at Hiroshima. My second reaction was that I hoped the target would be Kokura. Updated weather reports predicted fairly clear conditions at both targets for the next day. The meteorologists confirmed that after the ninth conditions would worsen. A weather front was moving over Japan that would cause unsettled weather for at least five days.

None of us had slept well over the past two days, and as the afternoon briefing dragged on, the tedium and tension grew. We finally finished up, and I returned to our hut to try to grab a little nap. The heat and anticipation again made sleep impossible. I went over to the Dogpatch Inn, where I saw Paul Burns and we had supper. After eating, I took a walk alone up the hill overlooking the runways. I lit up a cigar and began contemplating the mission. A steady flow of B-29s from the 313th were taking off in the darkness on the strips below. I saw an airplane struggling to lift off with its full load of fuel and bombs. It didn’t make it. The burning aviation fuel and exploding napalm-filled bombs sent plumes of flame and smoke billowing up into the sky. Sounds of explosions punctuated the night. I didn’t know it then, but 224 of those B-29s were going to bomb the industrial city of Yawata, the neighboring city of Kokura.

Our scheduled arrival at target was still at least fifteen hours away. Maybe this firebombing strike would compel the Japanese to surrender. It was possible. We were given a recall code to abort the mission if hostilities ended. But as the Mother Goose childhood rhyme reminds, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Wishing, I knew, wouldn’t be productive at this late hour. The Japanese had to be shaken from their self-delusion that they could grasp victory with some final, cataclysmic spasm of violence. Historians after a war may hypothesize about the what-ifs, ponder the maybes, and reflect upon what rational men of goodwill should have done, but in war it is the harsh reality of the present that controls events. Lives are not “theoretically” at stake. Death and maiming are absolutes. As Robert E. Lee observed, “It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.”

No beggars would ride that evening.

All of the crews gathered in the briefing hut at nine P.M. sharp. We were joined by the British observers Penney and Cheshire. The mood was quiet. The men knew what was coming, whereas on the first mission no one had known what to expect. My crew specifically understood what was before them. No one expressed any concern, but you could feel it in the air. There was a sense of hastening toward a destination that you hoped someone would tell you you didn’t have to reach. But the men maintained their professionalism. We had a job to do and we were going to do it.

Paul Tibbets opened with a few remarks. He explained in broad terms that Fat Man was a much more powerful bomb and quite different from the one he had dropped on Hiroshima. Because of our bomb, the Little Boy was now obsolete, and the brass in Washington were following our mission very closely. He knew we would do a good job and wished us well.

An intelligence officer started laying out the mission: “Major Sweeney will take the bomb, Captain Bock the instruments, and Colonel Hopkins the photographic equipment.”

In discussing the mission earlier with Paul Tibbets, I had asked for Fred Bock because of his experience and expertise as a pilot. Fred was a steady and reliable man to have on your wing. I knew that, in a crunch, I could depend on him and trust his judgment. But I was somewhat surprised when Tibbets told me he’d assigned the photographic airplane to Hopkins. Hopkins had had limited experience with the B-29 since he joined the headquarters staff of the 509th as group operations officer. In fact, if I were ranking the fifteen pilots in the 393rd available to fly the mission, he would not have been even among the group I would have considered the most proficient. Other than Hopkins’s own belief that he could fly the mission, as demonstrated in the meeting I’d had with Tom Classen when Tibbets wasn’t around, I was at a loss as to what recommended him for this flight.

But I dismissed the thought. Tibbets had chosen him and that was fine with me. I wasn’t going to second-guess him. I never had. Anyway, all Hopkins had to do was trail behind us and take pictures. No fancy maneuvers at the drop, just a straight-in flight. Simple. My major concern was to reach my target, release the bomb with Fred Bock close in beside me, and then get our tails out of there as fast as possible.

The operations officer went over air-sea rescue plans. Again, a network of submarines, surface ships, and specially equipped aircraft would line our flight path to and from the empire.

We then reviewed the details of the mission. The intelligence officers conceded in their most circumspect manner that yes, because of the Hiroshima mission, it would be difficult to predict with any certainty exactly what kind of opposition we might encounter if the Japanese discovered three unescorted B-29s crossing over to the mainland. In other words, they just might be waiting for us and throw every damn thing in the air at us they could. Or maybe not.

We were reminded in no uncertain terms to drop only visually, which was a natural introduction to the weather report. A typhoon was gathering momentum off Iwo Jima, and that required a change in the rendezvous point. A small island directly off the southern coast of Kyushu, the southern island of mainland Japan, was selected as the new rendezvous—Yakoshima. Because of the bad weather at lower altitudes and our proximity to the Japanese mainland, the rendezvous would be at 30,000 feet instead of at 8,000, as on the Hiroshima mission. This meant we would be flying through some turbulent weather for about five hours in complete radio silence. Then all three of us had to arrive at a tiny spot in the ocean within one minute of each other. At dawn on a gray, overcast day, it can be pretty tricky seeing another airplane at any distance.

After the briefing was finished, I asked Hopkins to wait up. I wanted to have a private word with him.

When the hut emptied, I said, “You know, Hoppy, it’s difficult to rendezvous up there at thirty thousand feet on a bad day. If we circle Yakoshima, we won’t know exactly how close we are to the shore. I could be a mile off, you could be three . . . you simply can’t tell. We’d never see each other. So I’ve picked a point on the southwest corner of the island—here.” I pointed to the map tacked to the wall. “From this point, we’ll run on a compass bearing a hundred and eighty degrees for two minutes and then back at three hundred and sixty degrees for two minutes and continue making this oval to and from that corner until we hook up.”

Hopkins and I had never been close. Our contacts had been businesslike and formal in a military way. He wanted to be regular army, everything by the book. His ambition to make the military his career and rise to the rank of a general officer were well-known. I certainly wasn’t one of his buddies, but I didn’t expect the response I got from him.

“Look, Major, I know all about that. I know how to make a rendezvous. You don’t have to tell me how to make a rendezvous,” Hopkins said with pronounced emphasis, his voice conveying aggravation at the intrusion.

Without another word, he turned and walked away.

To this day I don’t know if his reaction was because of his senior rank—he was a lieutenant colonel and I was only a major—or because he thought I was talking down to him. Or some belief that he should have commanded the mission. I don’t know. What I do know is that a few minutes later I had the same conversation with Fred Bock, a very experienced pilot, and he listened attentively and nodded in agreement.

Our final briefing would be at midnight. With time on my hands, I headed down to the flight line to look things over one more time. Portable lights illuminated the hardstand of number 77, Fred Bock’s airplane. For this mission, like the first, our aircraft would not have any nose art painted on the fuselage, just the black block tactical numbers assigned to each B-29. Nearby I could see my airplane, number 89. And on the other adjoining hardstand I saw the airplane Hopkins would pilot, Captain Herman Zahn’s B-29, number 90, named by its crew the Big Stink. As I surveyed the flight line I had no idea exactly how prophetic and fitting it was that Hopkins would be piloting the Big Stink.

I walked around number 77 slowly, visually checking every surface of the aircraft, looking for any telltale signs of fluid on the tarmac below. The ground crew was still performing various procedures and systems checks. My formal walk-around with my flight engineer and ground crew chief would take place later, during our preflight check. The bomb bay doors were open, so I hunched down and took a look.

There it was. Secure in the bomb bay, the Fat Man waited. Ten feet eight inches long, five feet across, painted with high-gloss yellow enamel and black tail fins. It weighed 10,300 pounds, at least 1,000 pounds heavier than Little Boy. It resembled a grossly oversized decorative squash. I could see that many people had signed the bomb or left poems and messages with varying degrees of vitriol.

Backing out from beneath the fuselage, I came face-to-face with an admiral whom I had never seen before. By his questions, he seemed to know who I was.

“Son, do you know how much that bomb cost?”

“No, sir,” I answered. I had things to do other than ponder the cost of military matériel, and I wanted to get a move on.

He paused a moment, I presume for effect, and then stated, “Two billion dollars.”

“That’s a lot of money, Admiral,” I answered with a slight whistle.

Before I could respond further he went on, “Do you know how much your airplane costs?”

Bingo. In fact, I did know the answer to that one almost to the penny. “Slightly over half a million dollars, sir.”

“I’d suggest you keep those relative values in mind for this mission,” the anonymous admiral said.

The final briefing commenced at midnight. Our weather airplanes would precede us by an hour to the two possible targets. Charlie McKnight would fly number 95 to Nagasaki, and George Marquart would fly number 88 to Kokura. Weather forecasts remained the same, clear at each target.

Added to my crew for this mission were three more officers, specialists in their fields: Lieutenant Jake Beser, who had been aboard the Enola Gay and would be responsible for monitoring radar frequencies in the event the Japanese tried to jam our radar and possibly detonate the radar fuse on Fat Man; Navy Commander Fred Ashworth, the weaponeer in charge of the bomb itself; and Lieutenant Philip Barnes, who would assist Commander Ashworth in monitoring a device connected to the bomb’s fuses. This monitoring device, connected to the bomb by an inch-thick cable, would alert Ashworth and Barnes if anything went wrong with the complicated electrical circuits wired to the four sets of fuses.

Chaplain Downey offered a prayer beseeching the Lord to see us safely through the mission. The words I remember well were, “Above all else, our Father, bring peace to thy world. . . .” After this, we headed over to the mess hall, and at about one A.M. the trucks delivered us to our hardstands.

Paul Tibbets had come down to the flight line to see us off. There were no throngs of cameras and lights and bigwigs. The atmosphere was reserved, everyone busy doing his job. The men spoke among themselves, anticipating the mission but talking about everything but. The mood was expectant. A couple of army photographers and one cameraman were on hand. A single newsman, Bill Laurence, the science and technology writer for the New York Times, who had been given unprecedented access by the War Department to chronicle the development of atomic weapons and our missions, wandered about. His reporting would earn him a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. He expressed disappointment at not being allowed to accompany Tibbets to Hiroshima but was excited about being aboard for this mission. He would fly with Fred Bock.

Not knowing that Fred and I had switched airplanes, he thought I was flying my own, The Great Artiste, and so in his eyewitness account identified it as the strike aircraft, an error that would persist for many years after the war.

On the adjoining hardstand stood our British observers, who were to fly with Hopkins.

I started my walk-around with Kuharek, Albury, and the ground crew chief. The airplane looked in pristine condition, not a drop of fluid on the ground, tire pressures perfect, surfaces clean and clear, everything in tiptop condition.

The crew assembled along the side of the aircraft for their preflight inspection. I decided that as the mission commander it was incumbent upon me to say a few words of encouragement to my men about so pivotal a mission. I respected and liked these men. They were all highly skilled professionals who knew their jobs and would do their duty. They didn’t need a pep talk or a lecture on how important the mission was. They were extremely intelligent; they knew. I just felt I owed them a statement.

“You were all with me the other day at Hiroshima. It was a perfect mission flown by Colonel Tibbets. Perfectly executed, perfectly flown, and dropped on the button. I want our mission to be exactly the same—for Colonel Tibbets. He has chosen us, and we owe him and our country the same. We will execute this mission perfectly and get the bomb to the target. I don’t care if I have to dive the airplane into the target, we’re going to deliver it.”

I had no intention of taking them into the target. I would have tried to bail them out and Beahan and I could have handled the rest, if it came to that. But I wanted to make a point.

I looked down the line of men, into each one’s eyes. What I saw was determination and resoluteness. If they had doubts, they didn’t show it in their eyes. We had trained for this day, which could bring the horrible war in the Pacific to a rapid end. It could be the day we began our journey back home to our friends and loved ones. It could be the day we started our return to our lives, which had been so suddenly and completely interrupted by the bombs that had fallen on our comrades at Pearl Harbor. Whatever happened, it would be a day of historic proportions.

As the crew climbed aboard and settled into their positions, I went over the maps one more time with our navigator, Jim Van Pelt, and Kermit Beahan. Satisfied that all was well, I bid Paul Tibbets farewell and climbed aboard.

I settled down into the leather seat, strapped myself in, and began my checklist with my copilot, Don Albury. Behind us, Sergeant Kuharek went through his systems check, and across from him, Van Pelt reviewed his navigational material and Ed Buckley checked his radar equipment.

We were at the point of “Start engines.” I prepared to give Kuharek, the flight engineer, the command when he leaned around toward me and said, “Major, we have a problem. The fuel in our reserve tank in the rear bomb bay bladder isn’t pumping. We’ve got six hundred gallons of fuel trapped back there.”

“Any idea what the problem is?” Could it be the instruments?” I asked.

“My guess is it’s a solenoid. It would have to be replaced,” he replied evenly.

“How long to fix it?” I asked.

“With all the special precautions, several hours,” he responded.

I unstrapped my harness, lifted myself out of the seat, and climbed down the nosewheel well ladder. Tibbets was standing off to one side as I emerged from under the wing.

“The auxiliary transfer fuel pump in the rear bomb bay bladder is malfunctioning, boss. We’ve got six hundred gallons trapped,” I advised him crisply.

Tibbets puffed calmly on his pipe as we discussed the options. Of our 1,000 gallons of reserve fuel, 600 gallons were trapped. This left me with 6,400 gallons total for the flight instead of 7,000. Replacing the pump could take hours. Transferring the bomb to another airplane would be equally time-consuming and was risky because it was live. Our window of opportunity was rapidly closing on us. If we didn’t take off soon, the mission would be scrubbed. The entire psychological impact of a one-two punch would be lost, and with it any real prospect of a quick end to the war.

I considered the consequences of going. We would have to carry the extra weight of 600 gallons of fuel for the entire flight without deriving any benefit from it. This extra weight would cause us to consume more fuel. En route to the rendezvous, I would have to fly at 17,000 feet to get above the storm, which would consume more fuel than if we flew at 8,000 feet. My payload was heavier than the Little Boy, requiring more fuel than had been needed on the first mission.

Tibbets, as was his style when he gave a man a job, said, “It’s your call, Chuck.”

Rolling all the factors around in my mind, I determined that I had more than enough fuel to make it to target. The problem was, if I encountered any delays, the likelihood of making it back to Tinian was zero, and getting back to any American-held base would be problematic at best. I would have to ditch in the ocean and get picked up by a rescue vessel. The anonymous admiral’s admonition had been prophetic. Losing the airplane was a small price to pay if we delivered the weapon. I had total confidence in my men, my machine, and myself.

I looked at Colonel Tibbets and said, “The hell with it, I want to go. We’re going.”

I climbed aboard, advised the crew we were taking off, and gave the order to start engines. With all engines turning, we rolled to the taxiway and proceeded to Runway A. It was about 2:45 A.M., slightly behind schedule. But we were on our way.