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[[on small piece of paper]]
"Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution, and therefore the greater the hardship, the greater would be the reward that would come out of it."
Dr. Niels Bohr [[/on small piece of paper]]

[[news clipping]]
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
VALLEY & STATE
or Editor Kristin Gilger, (602) 444-8222
in.gilger@arizonarepublic.com
TUESDA[[Y]]
August 29, 20[[00]]
SECTION
^[[8/25/00]]

Pilot on bombing raid over Nagasaki dies

By Jon Kamman
The Arizona Republic

Frederick C. Bock, who flew one of three aircraft on the mission that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, died of cancer Friday at his home in Scottsdale. He was 82. [[arrow from the word Friday to date]] ^[[8/25/00]]
The aircraft carrying the plutonium-laden bomb on Aug. 9, 1945, was the B-29 normally flown by then-Capt. Bock and which he had named "Bockscar." It was flown by Maj. Charles Sweeney.
Capt. Bock piloted another Superfortress, "Great Artiste," with scientific instruments and personnel to monitor the explosion.
Also on board was William 
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L. Lawrence, science writer for the New York Times, whose account of the mission won a Pulitzer Prize.
Born in Greenville, Mich., in 1918, Mr. Bock received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Chicago and was doing graduate work there before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces.
He flew 36 combat missions in the China-Burma-India theater before being selected for the highly secret 509th Composite Group.
Nagasaki was the backup target for the bomb dubbed "Fat Man" after weather obscured the original choice, Kokura. The bombing occurred three days after Hiroshima was devastated by the first wartime use of a nuclear 
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weapon.
On Aug. 14, the last day of hostilities before the Japanese surrendered, Capt. Bock was part of a conventional bombing raid over Japan.
Leaving the military as a much-decorated major, he returned to the University of Chicago, where he earned a doctorate in zoology.
He specialized in genetics and mathematical statistics and worked with some of the earliest commercially available computers to develop ways to solve complex problems.
After 25 years in research and development at the II Research Institute in Chicago, he joined Baxter Travenol Laboratories in 1979. He retired as a research scientist in 1986.
As chairman of the 50th anniversary reunion of the 509th Composite Group in 1995, Mr. Bock expressed the veterans' sentiments that the atomic bomb had hastened the end of the war and averted a protracted ground war. 
He was instrumental in obtaining the only recognition given the 509th as a group. A year ago, the secretary of the Air Force awarded it the Outstanding Unit Award (with valor) for exceptional combat achievement.
Mr. Bock is survived by his wife, Helen; two daughters, Katherine of Cambridge, Mass., and Heidi of Arvada, Colo.; a son, Wyman, of Cheam, England; and a sister, Gretchen, of Phoenix.
The funeral will be private.