Jacob Beser, radar countermeasure officer. 'Dutch' Van Kirk, navigator Major Thomas W. This didn’t leave enough time to move the complex instrumentation equipment from The Great Artiste to Bockscar, so the two crews traded planes with each other for the historic flight. The flight crew of the Enola Gay with ground maintenance officer, Lt. Weather considerations caused the fight to be moved from August 11 to August 9. Until the 509th reunion that year Jeppson. Normally, Sweeney and his crew piloted an aircraft called The Great Artiste, and this plane provided the instrumentation and observation support for the drop on Hiroshima.įor the second mission to Japan, Sweeny and his crew were chosen to deliver Fat Man while Bock and crew were chosen to provide observation support. In 1995 the American Legion awarded the Enola Gay crew its Distinguished Service medal, which Tibbets accepted on behalf of the crew, including Jeppson. Sweeney had used Bockscar for more than 10 training and practice missions (it wasn’t Bock’s airplane after all, just named after him). The bomb, code-named Little Boy, was targeted at the city. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. 6, 1945 with the 'Little Boy' atomic bomb. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. FILE - In this undated handout picture from the U.S.Army Air Force, the ground crew of the Enola Gay B29 bomber, which bombed Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. The answer relates to the purposes of the planes for each occasion. The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. The question relates to why didn’t Captain Frederick Bock fly his own plane (Bockscar) during the second run. Fewer people are aware that Bockscar (sometimes called Bock’s Car) delivered the second nuclear weapon, Fat Man, to Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Most people are aware that the bomber Enola Gay delivered the first atomic weapon to Hiroshima.