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[[newspaper clipping]]
Recalling bomb reaction and planning a reunion
By Rick Kreps
The atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945 jolted the Japanese to the sobering conclusion that American scientists had harnessed the power of the universe to be used at the disposal of Allied Forces.

The Japanese surrendered less than one week later, ending World War II - the Earth's bloodiest war.

The atom bomb, though closing the door on a world war, also opened the portal to the Atomic and Nuclear Ages.

The world has not been the same since.
Bill Barney, a Thorncreek Township farmer who was a young radar operator on the mission that dropped the Nagasaki bomb, said all the ramifications of the bomb were not apparent immediately following its detonation. He and his fellow airmen only hoped that the new weapon would end the war.

They knew the death toll would be massive: 70,000 at Nagasaki and 120,000 at Hiroshima three days earlier. But then the war had been wracked with such figures: 40,000 Britons during the Blitz; 135,000 at Dresden; 70,000 in one night's firebombing of Tokyo, the Holocaust; the Bataan Death March... Pearl Harbor.

Under these circumstances, it's obvious why the Nagasaki mission crew could not dwell on the wasted humanity left in the atomic bomb's wake.

"You just don't dare let that bother you," Barney said in a recent interview. "I've had several people during the years ask me about my reaction.

"The way I feel is about it was Japan was beat, but we were going to have to invade it. And if we were going to invade it, it was going to take a lot more of our lives and a lot more of their lives. And this way, we just took their lives. It may seem hard, but they were the enemy. I'd much rather had the lives lost by Japanese than American.

"This is just the way you have to consider yourself to thinking... and it's still horrible.

"It didn't even enter your mind what you were doing. You just did your job. You didn't think about it; somebody else did the thinking and told you what to do. It was just like going to school. They told you to get  your lessons and so you got them. You do your job.

"We did our job well, we knew that. That's why we were picked to go on that mission."

After the Nagasaki bombing, Barney and his crewmates were reunited with their B-29 Superfortress, named Bock's Car, and during the following days par-

Continued on page 5 ^[[*Bottom of next page]]

[[box]]
[[image: photo of exploding atom bomb]]
[[caption: Ending the War Part III
  "It may seem hard, but they were the 
  enemy. I'd much rather had the lives
  lost be Japanese than American."
[/box]]

Sirens mark Nagasaki atomic blast
NAGASAKI, Japan (UPI)- Fireworks crackled through Nagasaki today and 24,000 people gathered to mark the world's second atomic bombing and pray it would be the last.

The wail of air raid sirens, the tolling of church bells and bursts of firecrackers resounded through the city at 11:02 a.m., the minute the atomic bomb was dropped on Aug. 9, 1945.

As an organist played a Japanese lullaby, Buddhist and Shinto priests burned incense and chanted sutras to remember the day of destruction, when 70,000 people were killed.

"Terms such as the preciousness of life or human dignity were rendered meaningless" by the bomb, Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima told the crowd after a minute of silent prayer for the victims.

He implored that the Nagasaki bomb be the last ever used.

"I pray that we open a new chapter in human history - a chapter of peace for the 21st century," he said. Japanese news agencies said about 24,000 people took

Continued on page 5

[[image: photo of man sitting in chair, holding an object "THE GOOD WAR"]]
[[caption: BILL BARNEY'S recollections of the bombing of Nagasaki are documented in Studs Terkel's 1984 oral history of World War II titled "The Good War," available at the Peabody Library.
(Post & Mail photo by Rick Kreps)
[/newspaper clipping]]

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

[[album note]]
I flew into Kwajalein - landed at 17:10 Guam time on 12 August, 1946 - Left at 20:10 ( 3 hrs later) We ate a later supper there before heading for Johnson Field. Arrived at Johnson 8 hrs later at 0410.
[/album note]]

[[Popular Science magazine article]]
[[image: photo of Kwajalein, a Pacific atoll]]
[[image: graphic drawing of a Pacific atoll called Kwajalein showing new construction]]

Kwajalein, an atoll in the in the central Pacific, is the only place in the Free World that has an operational anti-missile missile defense. From here many Zeus missiles have been fired to intercept and "destroy" Atlas ICBMs launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 4,500 miles away in Southern California.

[[mapping labels on Kwajalein construction project diagram:
NEW CONSTRUCTION FOR NIKE-X
HOUSING AREA
COMMUNITY FACILITIES
ZEUS ACQISITION RADAR
LAGOON 
NEW CONSTRUCTION FOR NIKE-X
MISSILE-TRACKING RADARS
ZEUS DISCRIMINATION RADAR
TARGET-TRACKING RADARS
HEADQUARTERS KWAJALEIN TEST SITE
MISSILE LAUNCH
AIRPORT
GOLF COURSE
[/mapping labels on Kwajalein construction project diagram:
^[[October 1965 Popular Science]]

Nagasaki ^[[Post & Mail 1985]]
Recalling Bomb
Continued from page one

^[[Picture is upside down and backwards.]]
[[image: a cartoonish picture of two linked box cars with wings attached, on or over a global object. Name: BOCKSCAR]]

ticipated in additional incendiary bombing raids on Japanese cities. Less that a week after Nagasaki, on Aug. 15, the Japanese accepted terms for unconditional surrender. Surrender documents were officially signed aboard the U.S. ship Missouri on Sept. 2.

"We were in the air, returning from a run over northern Japan when we found out the war was over," Barney said of Aug. 15, 1945. "I think we probably dropped one of the last bombs of the war."

That final bombing mission of the Bock's Car crew will be remembered next week during a special reunion at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio.

The historic Bock's Car is a permanent fixture at the air museum and next Thursday, Aug. 15, the plane will be opened for the crew to reunite and commemorate the 40th anniversary of its last flight.

It will be the first time in 40 years that every member of the nine-man crew of Capt. Fred Bock will be reunited.

"I's kind of unusual that all of us are still living," Barney said.

The Bock's Car crew is indeed alive and well, with memories of an historic event etched in the their minds, the bombing of Nagasaki - the last wartime use of an atomic weapon.

And hopefully the last.
"I have no idea what could happen today," Barney said of the nuclear arms race. "This (atom bomb) was strictly grade school stuff. Now things are so sophisticated that there is no comparison to what happened then and what could happen today.

"I assume now the world could be destroyed in half a day."
[/newspaper clipping]]

[[military service record]]
[[preprinted]]
ENTERED SERVICE
DATE ^[[3 July, 1944]]
PLACE ^[[Ft. Benjamin Harrison]]
BRANCH OF SERVICE ^[[Army Air Corps]]
REMARKS [blank line]

TRAINING PERIOD
DATE ^[[11 July, 1944]]
CAMP ^[[Buckley Fld, Colo.]]
LOCATION [blank line]]
ORGANIZATION ^[[Sect. H]]
COMMANDING OFFICER [blank line]]
[/preprinted]]
[/military service record]]
^[[182]]