ON AUGUST 6, 1945, a 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb, known as “Little Boy” was loaded aboard a modified B-29 bomber christened the Enola Gay and dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing over 80,000 people instantly.
Radiation exposure would later kill thousands more.
“Fat Man”
Following the devastating bombing of Hiroshima, three days later, the US dropped another, more powerful A-bomb, known as “Fat Man” on the city of Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
The bombing of these two cities, forced the Japan’s Emperor Hirohito to surrender in World War II on August 15.
The US National Archives have released previously classified images of the preparation of these two bombs by the US army.
Preparations
Here Soldiers check the casings on the “Fat Man” atomic bomb. Multiple test bombs were created on Tinian Island. All were roughly identical to an operational bomb, even though they lacked the necessary equipment to detonate.
On the left, geophysicist and Manhattan Project participant Francis Birch marks the bomb unit that would become “Little Boy” while Norman Ramsey, who would later win the Nobel Prize in Physics, looks on.
A technician applies sealant and putty to the crevices of “Fat Man,” a final preparation to make sure the environment inside the bomb would be stable enough to create a full impact once it detonated.
Soldiers and workers sign their names and other messages on the nose of “Fat Man”.
Here’s a closer look at the signatures.
“Fat Man” is loaded onto a transport trailer and given a final once-over.
The bomb is then escorted to the nearby North Field airbase on Tinian, shrouded in tarp.
At the airfield, “Fat Man” is lined up over a pit specifically constructed for it, from which it is then loaded into the plane that eventually dropped it over Nagasaki
Both pits for “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” each roughly 8 feet by 12 feet, still exist today on the island and now serve as a memorial of sorts.
The bomb and its trailer are lowered down into the pit using a hydraulic lift.
Workers check “Little Boy” one last time, keeping the tarp on for security reasons, following a similar lowering procedure like the one done for “Fat Man” three days later.
Once “Little Boy” is ready, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, is reversed and positioned over the trench.
The tarp is removed and the bomb is readied for loading.
Using the hydraulic lift, “Little Boy” is carefully raised and loaded into the belly of the Enola Gay.
Once inside the plane, the bomb is secured and all connections and equipment are checked again.
From there, both “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” were flown over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, and detonated. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the attacks and World War II ended shortly afterwards.
Here is video footage from 1945:
Additional reporting Christina Finn
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