Warbird Information Exchange

The USS Indianapolis delivered the atomic components for the bombs, but how and when were the casings delivered?

Most of the casings were delivered via ship. A few (bare casings) were flown over in the B-29s as the 393rd BS left for Tinian.

Though hotly debated - Thomas Classen (Vice Commander of the 509th) and Paul Tibbets say that shortly after the first bomb was dropped Tibbets sent Classen back to Wendover to pick up a 3rd bomb!!?? Again, this is a pretty hotly debated point of history but there it is.

Tom P.

I have always been lead to believe they had gone so far as to designate a thrid target city, Kokura (sp?).

Kokura was on the list of eligible targets and if I remember right would have been bombed on August 9th had it not been cloud covered.

Tom P.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bom ... of_targets

The Target Committee at Los Alamos on May 10–11, 1945, selected in order the following targets:
Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura arsenal, Niigata, and possibly the Emperor's Palace.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson struck Kyoto off the list because of its cultural significance, over the objections of Gen. Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan project. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, Stimson "had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier."


http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html
Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945

Rob / Kansan

Then what happened to Kyoto?

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