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[[newspaper clippings]]
Crew was uncertain of bomb's raw power
By Rick Kreps
The mission crew that destroyed Nagasaki 40 year ago tomorrow with the last wartie atomic bomb knew as much about its destructive force as their stateside families.

And that was practically nothing.
In fact, thos involved with dropping the lethal Nagasaki bomb say the results of Hiroshima, the first A-bomb dropped three days prior to Nagasaki, were known in the U.S. at about the same time mission crewmen knew.

Bill Barney, a life-long Thorncreek Township resident who was a radar man on the Nagasaki mission, said he and his mates knew only that they had trained long and hard for a special mission to drop a heavy bomb.

"As to actually know what was going on, our people knew back home about the same time we did," Bill said in a recent interview. "When they sent the (Hiroshima) strike report back, we got it too. But as far as talking to the guys (Hiroshima crew members), there wasn't much of that. There were a lot of reporters around. So, really, we read as much about it in the papers as we found out about it first-hand."

That is, until three day later high above Nagasaki, when Barney saw the awesome destructive power of the atomic bomb from the observation window of a B-29.

After months of specialized training in the U.S. aboard a stripped-down and souped-up B-29 Superfortress named Bock's Car (for pilot Capt. Fred Bock), Barney and his fellow eight crewmen flew the bomber from Salt Lake City to Tinian Island in the South Pacific.

[[image: photo of exploding atomic bomb]]
[[caption: Ending the War Part II
Bill Barney witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki. "You could see fires all over... just acres and acres of fires."]]

It was May, 1945.
Japan was a defeated nation, reeling as more and more Allied troops flooded the Pacific Theatre following victory in Europe.

But the Japanese were stubborn and relentless fighters, giving up their conquered islands to the allies only when their last drop of blood was spilled. Continued island hopping to defeat the Japanese was bound to take more years of war, more money - and more lives. Fighting would become more intense as the Allies closed in on the Japanese homeland.

The only alternative to the
Continued on page 5

[[image: photo of exploding atomic bomb]]
[[caption: SINCE THE PHOTO PLANE for the Nagasaki mission failed to rendezvous for the attack, the bombing was documented by the simple box cameras of crewmen aboard the two B-29 Superfortresses. The tailgunner aboard Bill Barney's plane snapped this historic photo when the aircraft was approximately eight miles from the devastated city.
(Photo courtesy Bill Barney]]
^[[Photo by Bob Stock, tailgunner
on the B-29 Great Artiste]]

[[image: photo of two Asian men working in field kitchen]]
[[caption: ^[[Jap KP's. We wash our mess gear in big tanks behind]]

[[image: photo of barber and haircut customer]]
[[caption: ^[[Hair removal anyone?]]

[[image: Asian woman performing laundry tasks]]
[[caption: ^[[Laundry is behind the photo lab and across the road. Japanese women do the laundry]]

^[[169]]

[[end page]]
[[start page]]

Bomb's raw power Continued from page one

prolonged warring and bloodshed was unconditional surrender by the Japanese.

Those terms were spelled out at the Potsdam Conference in July, 1945. However, instead of negotiating for peace the Japanese continued to stall for time.

And as they stalled the war went on. Japanese cities were being destroyed by incendiary bombs from wave upon wave of U.S. bombardment squadrons.

More and more lives on both sides were being lost.

It was at this stage in history that on July 16, 1945 a brilliant flash of light sizzled on the desert near Alamogordo, N.M. With that flash, United States scientists unleashed the power of the atom.

The atomic bomb was now a part of the Allied arsenal.

Long before that test explosion on the New Mexican desert, special B-29 Superfortress crews had been assembled and thoroughly trained in carrying heavy bombs and delivering them to targets.

Among the crews was Capt. Fred Bock's, which included radar man bill Barney.

In late 1944 and early 1945, as the crews trained for a special mission (its exact nature was something they didn't know), all indications were that the Superfortress group would be deployed to the European Theatre.

"We were sure we were going to German," Barney said. "All of our simulated flights with a navigator, radar operator and bombardier... all of them for a long time were over European targets. Then, all of a sudden, the war was over there..."

Germany surrendered to the Allies in May, 1945, bowing to conventional warfare.

But the Japanese were a different story. Despite their losses and hopeless situation, the Japanese military was unyielding. It needed a "convincer" to shock it into surrender.

That shocker exploded above Hiroshima on Aug. 6, killing more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians.

But the Japanese continued to ignore negotiating a surrender.

Three days later, on Aug. 9, 1945, Bill Barney and his crewmates were soaring above the Pacific en route to the Japanese mainland to drop a second convincer.

But for the first time their career as a crew, Barney and his fellow airmen were not aboard Bock's Car.

Orders were that Capt. Fred Bock's crew would switch vessels with Capt. Chuck Sweeney's plane, named "The Great Artiste," while Sweeney's crew would command Bock's Car. The bomb would be dropped from Bock's Car.

Just three days earlier at Hiroshima, Sweeney and his Great Artiste accompanied the Enola Gay, serving as its instrument plane. The Great Artiste had the same role again at Nagasaki, but with a different crew - Bock's crew.

It was the only time during the war that Bock and his crew were separated from their ship.

Reconnaissance planes over the Japanese mainland indicated that weather was good to proceed with dropping the second atomic bomb. The weather was suitable over both Kokura, the mission's primary target, and Nagasaki, the secondary target.

Bock's Car, The Great Artiste and a third photography plane took off in the early morning, headed toward a noontime bomb drop.

The three planes were scheduled to rendezvous at 10:30 a.m. at a point south of Kokura, establish formation and proceed to the drop. At 10:30 Bock's Car and The Great Artiste made the rendezvous, but the photo plane never arrived. Lost, the photo plane would not reunite with the other two until later that day when the mission was over.

Bock's Car and The Great Artiste proceeded to Kokura.

Capt. Sweeney and his crew aboard Bock's Car had the job of dropping the bomb, while Capt. Bock's crew served as the instrument plane on the flight.

"I performed regular duty going up there and coming back... helped take us in and bring us home," radar operator Barney said. "When we got to our target I had a device to operate that would measure the velocity of the bomb. That was my job."

All reports were that Kokura's weather was clear for the drop. The weather was very important because Sweeney's crew had been ordered to bomb its target visually; the bombardier had to be able to see with his view unobstructed by cloud cover.

As the two B-29s neared their target, patchy cloud cover set in over Kokura. The planes made three passes over the city at some 30,000 feet, trying to see through to deliver the weapon. A break in the clouds did not come.

Meanwhile, the two planes were beginning to attract the attention of anti-aircraft flak from far below. A squadron of Japanese fighter pilots was taking off when Capt. Sweeney decided to abandon a drop on Kokura and proceed to the secondary target - Nagasaki.

Arriving at Nagasaki, home of the huge Mitsubishi shipyard and ammunition factory, the mission encountered almost complete cloud cover over its target. But, as if by destiny, as the two planes flew over there was a break in the clouds.

At 12:02 the bomb, dubbed "Big Boy" due to its larger size that the Hiroshima bomb ("Little Boy"), disengaged from its bay and hurtled downward.

At the same time, Barney's crewmates aboard The Great Artiste dropped parachute clusters of recording instruments. Barney was busy keeping tabs of the bomb's velocity as it sped toward earth.

This was all going on as the two B-29s banked hard to the left and made a beeline away from Nagasaki.

When the bomb flashed with its searing light and enormous concussion about 1,500 feet above Nagasaki, Bock's Car and The Great Artiste were nearly eight miles away.

The planes were hit by as many as six concussions from the blast, jolts that steadily decreased in intensity.

After the second jolt, when Barney had finished his measurements, he got up and went to an observation window. From there he could see the stupefying column of black smoke capped by the telltale mushroom cloud pushing higher and higher into the atmosphere. On the ground, far below "you could see fires all over...just acres and acres of fires."

Since the photo plane was not around, the crew aboard The Great Artiste began snapping away at the scene with their little box cameras.

"All the bomb pictures came from our ship, from box cameras the guys had. The tailgunner took the ones [[?]] still have."

Because of the detour from the primary target at Kokura to Nagasaki, the planes were funning low on fuel. They wasted no time speeding to a safe landing at Okinawa.

Part III: Reactions and a reunion.

[[image: photo of a group of Japanese workers]]
[[caption: ^[[Japs being paid. They get ¥8 per day (about 53 cents).]]

[[image: photo Japanese workers being searched]]
[[caption: ^[[Japs are searched as they leave the main gate]]

[[image: photo of Japanese man being searched]]
[[caption: MP found cake of soap in this guy's p ants. Got pretty rough treatment.]]

^[["Millions" of them - and they each carry their fish heads and rice in those pouches. Boy does it stink!]]

[[image: photo of group of Japanese workers]]

[[image: photo of Japanese worker being searched]]

^[[170]]