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Bockscar

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and NagasakiBoeing B-29 SuperfortressCollection of the National Museum of the United States Air ForceIndividual aircraft of World War IIPages with empty portal template
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Bockscar 050809 F 1234P 003
Bockscar 050809 F 1234P 003

Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the second – and most recent – nuclear attack in history. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, Bockscar was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Bellevue, Nebraska, at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, and delivered to the United States Army Air Forces on 19 March 1945. It was assigned to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah in April and was named after captain Frederick C. Bock. Bockscar was used in 13 training and practice missions from Tinian, and three combat missions in which it dropped pumpkin bombs on industrial targets in Japan. On 9 August 1945, Bockscar, piloted by the 393d Bombardment Squadron's commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, dropped the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT over the city of Nagasaki. About 44% of the city was destroyed; 35,000 people were killed and 60,000 injured. After the war, Bockscar returned to the United States in November 1945. In September 1946, it was given to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The aircraft was flown to the museum on 26 September 1961, and its original markings were restored (nose art was added after the mission). Bockscar is now on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio, next to a replica of the Fat Man bomb.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Bockscar (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

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Latitude Longitude
N 39.781976 ° E -84.108892 °
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National Museum of the United States Air Force

Spaatz Street 1100
45433
Ohio, United States
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nationalmuseum.af.mil

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Bockscar 050809 F 1234P 003
Bockscar 050809 F 1234P 003
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Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mound
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mound

The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Mound, designated 33GR31, is a Native American mound near the city of Dayton in Greene County, Ohio, United States. Named for its location on an Air Force facility, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the mound is an archaeological site.The mound lies on a bluff sitting above generally flat terrain; it measures 86 feet (26 m) in diameter and slightly more than 8 feet (2.4 m) tall. Located about 0.62 miles (1.00 km) south of the memorial to the Wright brothers on Huffman Prairie, it is believed to have been built by people of the prehistoric Adena culture, who inhabited southwestern Ohio approximately between 500 BC and AD 400. Pieces of limestone are present near the mound's surface; this may indicate that the builders covered it with limestone and that natural forces such as wind have since covered the stone with the soil that now forms the mound's surface.In 1972, the mound was listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its archaeological importance; it was the fourth Greene County location to be added to the Register, following Huffman Prairie and the two earthworks sites at Indian Mound Reserve near Cedarville. While it has never been excavated, it was subjected to a range of geophysical survey methods in mid-1996. Hoping to discover the locations of buried bodies and to learn about the soil within the mound, the surveyors used techniques such as ground-penetrating radar and found evidence of the mound's stratigraphy, as well as revealing evidence of unidentified features in and around it. Future excavations, if conducted, are expected to increase knowledge of Adena death customs and daily life.