4/18/2017

The sudden change in dropping Atomic Bomb to Nagasaki Cily from Kokura City on 9 August, 1945

  The B-29 "Box Car" equipped with "Fat Man" which was exchanged to the Nagasaki Atomic bomb. Kokura city was selected as the second target after the Hiroshima City of the first target to the Atomic Bomb. From the following aerial photograph of June 18, 1945, the hypocenter was set as the armory at Kokura City. The Armory was a military facility, which stored the manufacturing, designing and repairing weapons and ammunition etc. On 9 August, 1945, "the Box Car" took off from Tinian Island and reached the sky above Kokura city at 9:44 AM. At the previous day on August 8, Yawata City in the south 7 km form Kokura  City had suffered severely the air rads. Kokura City was covered with fog and smoke, and it became difficult to visually dispatch "Fat Man" The captain of "Box Car" suddenly changed the second target to Nagasaki City where was the third destination at 10:30, because the residual fuel continued to be exhausted. Temporarily it was possible to visually drop from the clouds, and "Box Car" dropped Fat Man to explode at 11:02. Nagasaki City. The hypocenter had deviated to the Urakami district in the northwest by about 3 km.