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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 Germany, 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 in 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 second 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, established 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.
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[[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]]