06/08/2025
WAYBACK WEDNESDAY - Operation CENTERBOARD I: 'Little Boy' Dropped On Hiroshima
80 Years Ago - At 0245K (UTC +10) on Aug. 6, 1945, Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., and the crew of the stripped-down B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' took off from the Army Air Force's 509th Composite Group's base on Tinian, Northern Marianna Islands, the execute the first atomic weapon combat mission over an enemy target. At approximately 0815J (UTC +9), bombadier Maj. Thomas W. Ferebee released the single payload of a 10,000 pound Mk1 uranium bomb, code-named "Little Boy", over the primary target of Hiroshima, Japan. At about 1,900 feet above ground, the nuclear device detonated vicinty the Aioi Bridge, unleashing a force of about 15,000 tons of TNT and heat of 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit in less than one second.
President Harry S. Truman received news of the mission while returning from the July 17 through August 2 Potsdam Conference aboard the USS Augusta. During that conference, President Truman along with Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek issued an unconditional surrender proclamation to the government of Imperial Japan, declaring its "prompt and utter destruction" for non-compliance.
With no immediate official communication of surrender received, a second mission was executed by the crew of the B-29 Bockscar over its secondary target of Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Six days later on Aug. 15, Emperor Hirohito issues a statement over the radio to the citizens of Japan that the government accepted the Potsdam Declaration, referring to the two atomic bombs as the reason. About two weeks later, Gen. Douglas MacArthur presided of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945 - Victor Over Japan (V-J) Day.
For more information on the ex*****on and effects of the these missions, the 99th RD Historian recommends the linked National WWII Museum article:
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
