The Great Artiste
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The Great Artiste, a U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bomber, was the regular aircraft of Major Charles Sweeney who piloted Bockscar to drop the Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki on the 9th of August 1945. The entire crews of the two aeroplanes were swapped for the mission and Major Fredrick Bock flew The Great Artiste to Nagasaki as the observer aircraft. The Great Artiste was intended to be the aircraft to drop the bomb but it was already loaded with complex scientific equipment from its previous mission, with the Enola Gay to Hiroshima as the observer aircraft. To avoid the trouble of moving this equipment to another aircraft, it was decided to make the last minute crew switch.
External link
- US Air Force Museum Archives Gallery Bockscar page (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b3-35.htm)