1945 – World War II: USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped an atomic bomb named "Fat Man", devastating Nagasaki, Japan.
Bockscar was flown on that day by the crew of another B-29, The Great Artiste, and was commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney, commander of the 509th Composite Group's only bomber squadron, the 393d. The Great Artiste, which was the assigned aircraft of the crew with whom Sweeney most often flew, was slotted in preliminary planning to drop the second bomb, but it had been fitted with observation instruments for the Hiroshima mission.
Bockscar had been flown by Sweeney and crew C-15 in three test drop rehearsals of inert "Fat Man" assemblies in the eight days leading up to the second mission, including the final rehearsal the day before. Rather than move the instrumentation from The Great Artiste to Bockscar, a complex and time-consuming process, the crews of The Great Artiste and Bockscar switched planes. The result was that the bomb was dropped by Bockscar, flown by the crew C-15 of The Great Artiste.
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