It contained 64 kg (141 lb) of enriched uranium, of which less than a kilogram underwent nuclear fission. This was accomplished by shooting a hollow cylinder of enriched uranium (the “bullet”) onto a solid cylinder of the same material (the “target”) by means of a charge of nitrocellulose propellant powder. Like Thin Man, it was a gun-type fission weapon, but derived its explosive power from the nuclear fission of uranium-235. The Little Boy was a development of the unsuccessful Thin Man nuclear bomb. Parsons flew on the Hiroshima mission as weaponeer. Parsons’s Ordnance (O) Division at the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. Little Boy was developed by Lieutenant Commander Francis Birch’s group of Captain William S. The bomb caused significant destruction to the city of Hiroshima and its occupants. It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ). The Hiroshima bombing was the second artificial nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and the first uranium-based detonation. It was the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces. “ Little Boy” was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul W. But six of his crew men died as a result of blast wounds and radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August, 1945. This actually saved his life, as when the bomb hit Hiroshima. But despite Captain Tom Cartwright telling his captors the truth, he was not believed and he was shipped off to Tokyo for a more ‘rigorous’ interrogation. the instructions given to captured airmen was to tell captors the truth, as the US assumed that Japanese already knew what was planned, and telling the truth would possibly limit torture. Three planes that were flying missions over Hiroshima were shot down in the days before the bombing, with the crew of Lonesome Lady all managing to bail out and survive the crash… before being quickly captured and imprisoned in a base in Hiroshima. Only the pilot, Thomas Cartwright, and Tail Gunner, Bill Abel, returned home from that mission. The Lonesome Lady was shot down on 28 July, 1945 while bombing the Japanese Battleship Haruna, in Kure Harbor.
They advised the citizens of “prompt and utter destruction” and urged civilians to flee. after the war.Like other survivors they were called Hibakusha-person affected by a bomb’ or ‘person affected by the exposition to a bomb.īefore the atomic attacks, the US Air Force dropped pamphlets in Japan.
However about 3,000 of them are known to have survived and returned to the U.S. It is estimated that up to 11,000 Japanese-Americans died that day. It was a common practice before the war for American Issei, or first-generation immigrants, to send their children on extended trips to Japan to study or visit relatives.There was, therefore, a sizable population of American-born Japanese living in their parents’ hometowns of Hiroshima. He was the only crew member to be on both missions. Tibbets Jr had flown the lead bomber ‘Butcher Shop'(aka Big Tin Bird) for the first American daylight heavy bomber mission on 17 August 1942, a shallow penetration raid against a marshaling yard in Rouen in Occupied France.įirst Lieutenant Jacob Beser was the radar specialist aboard the Enola Gay, 3 days later, he was a crew member aboard Bockscar when the Fat Man bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Prior to the war in the Pacifc and taking command of the Enola Gay, Colonel Paul W. The crew of the Enola Gay consisted of 12 men. So much has already been documented about this, so therefore I will focusing more on the lesser known facts about that fateful day and the aftermath Today marks the 74th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.