The Third Nuke...

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Enola Gay delivered the Uranium gun-type bomb.
Boxcar, the Plutonium 'imploder'.
At which point, cities fire-bombed, Russians weighing in etc etc, Japanese surrendered on terms.

Do we know which Silverplate B-29 would have dropped a third Device, yet to be shipped ??

[MikeKozlowski]

Nik,

AFAIK no aircraft would have been selected yet - Bomb 3 was still almost a week away from Tinian when the Japanese surrendered.

My thinking is that it might have been The Great Artiste, which was supposed to drop the Nagasaki bomb, but cancelled because the Nagasaki strike date was moved up because of forecast weather conditions, and the blast instrumentation gear she had flown to Hiroshima hadn't been pulled out yet. Artiste's crew, led by Charles Sweeney, moved over to Bockscar and Artiste flew blast instrumentation again, making her the only aircraft to fly as part of two atomic strike missions. Frederick Bock, whose crew was assigned to Bockscar, would have likely then flown Artiste to Kokura.

Interestingly, this shuffling caused problems in the immediate postwar years - the official USAAF news release was never corrected, so Artiste was originally marked for preservation instead of Bockscar, and it was the late 40s before it got sorted out.

Mike

[Jotun]

Enola Gay delivered the Uranium gun-type bomb.
Boxcar, the Plutonium 'imploder'.
At which point, cities fire-bombed, Russians weighing in etc etc, Japanese surrendered on terms.

Do we know which Silverplate B-29 would have dropped a third Device, yet to be shipped ??

Kokura, Niigata and Yokohama are the names I read again and again over the years. Tokyo was considered, but was already burned out and in ruins, and decapitating the Japanese junta and vaporizing the Imperial Family would have complicated a later surrender of Japan.

Kyoto was removed from the list of possible targets by the Secretary of War personally for reasons of conservation of historically and culturally significant sites, the city having been the Japanese capital for centuries.

IIRC, Kokura had a large military target in the city proper, the Kokura Arsenal, a war industrial center, and had already been the primary target of Bock's Car.

So, likely Kokura.

[Craiglxviii]

“Third Shot”, c.19th August and likely would have used one of the weather ships the 529th had available. Bock’s Car had been a scientific survey ship for the Hiroshima strike.

NB, the other ships were Big Stink and Up & Atom…

[Jotun]

“Third Shot”, c.19th August and likely would have used one of the weather ships the 529th had available. Bock’s Car had been a scientific survey ship for the Hiroshima strike.

NB, the other ships were Big Stink and Up & Atom…

Big Stink sounds like a Nurglite bio-agent bomber

[Craiglxviii]

“Third Shot”, c.19th August and likely would have used one of the weather ships the 529th had available. Bock’s Car had been a scientific survey ship for the Hiroshima strike.

NB, the other ships were Big Stink and Up & Atom…

Big Stink sounds like a Nurglite bio-agent bomber

They had some good names!

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Thank you all !!

'Up and Atom' sounds 'right', with 'Artiste' the pathfinder...

Yes, yes, I'm half-way back to writing 'Fresno'. Although latest chapter was mostly written a month ago --I keep reviewing my editing buffer-- 'Codename: MONGOOSE' repeatedly whispers, 'But you haven't told them about...'