''The Great Artiste'' was a

U.S. Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Silverplate

B-29 The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fly ...

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...

(B-29-40-MO 44-27353, Victor number 89), assigned to the

393d Bomb Squadron The 393rd Bomb SquadronOfficially, the 393d Bomb Squadron is part of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. It operates Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit nuclear-capable strategic bomber aircraft. The squadron was first organiz ...

509th Composite Group The 509th Composite Group (509 CG) was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces created during World War II and tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons. It conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in ...

. The aircraft was named for its bombardier,

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Kermit Beahan, in reference to his bombing talents. It flew 12 training and practice missions in which it bombed Japanese-held Pacific islands and dropped

pumpkin bomb Pumpkin bombs were conventional aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. It was a close replication of the Fat Man plutonium bomb with the same ballistic an ...

s on targets in Japan. It was the only aircraft to have participated in both the

bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

, albeit as an observation aircraft on each mission. After the war ended it returned with the 509th Composite Group to

Roswell Army Air Field Roswell may refer to: * Roswell incident Places in the United States * Roswell, Colorado, a former settlement now part of Colorado Springs * Roswell, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta * Roswell, Idaho * Roswell, New Mexico, known for the purported 194 ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. It was scrapped in September 1949 after being heavily damaged in an accident at Goose Bay Air Base,

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

, the year before.

Aircraft history

Built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

, ''The Great Artiste '' (B-29-40-MO 44-27353) was a Silverplate

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

bomber. It was accepted by the

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

on 20 April 1945, and flown to

Wendover Army Air Field Wendover Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base in Utah now known as Wendover Airport. During World War II, it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews. It was the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B-29 ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, by its assigned crew C-15, commanded by

First Lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a s ...

Charles D. Albury, in May. It departed Wendover for North Field, Tinian on 22 June. It was originally assigned Victor (unit-assigned identification) number 9, but on 1 August it was given the circle R tail markings of the 6th Bombardment Group as a security measure, and it had its Victor number changed to 89 to avoid misidentification with actual 6th Bombardment Group aircraft. Its nose art was painted after the Nagasaki mission. The name purportedly referred to the talents of the bombardier,

Kermit Beahan, with both the

Norden bombsight The Norden Mk. XV, known as the Norden M series in U.S. Army service, is a bombsight that was used by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean and t ...

and with women. In addition to its use on the nuclear bomb missions, ''The Great Artiste'' was flown by five different crews on 12 training and practice missions. It flew bombing missions against Rota on 4 July, Truk on 8 July, and Marcus on 9 July. It returned to bomb Rota again on 12 and 14 July, and bombed Guguan on 18 and 19 July. It was flown by Albury and crew C-15 on two combat missions, one of which was aborted, and the other in which it used a

to attack the railroad yards at

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

on 24 July. Captain Bob Lewis and crew B-9 flew it to drop a pumpkin bomb on an industrial target in Koriyama on 29 July. Flown by 393d commander,

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

Charles W. Sweeney Charles William Sweeney (December 27, 1919 – July 16, 2004) was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and the pilot who flew ''Bockscar'' carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb to the Japanese city of Nagasaki on Augus ...

, it was assigned to the

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

mission on 6 August 1945, as the blast measurement instrumentation aircraft. On the mission to bomb Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, it was to have been the aircraft carrying the bomb, but the mission schedule had been moved forward two days because of weather considerations, and the instrumentation had not yet been removed from the aircraft. To avoid delaying the mission, Sweeney traded airplanes with the crew of ''

Bockscar ''Bockscar'', sometimes called Bock's Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the secondand most recent nuclear attack in ...

'' to carry the

Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the fir ...

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

. Captain

Frederick C. Bock Frederick Carl Bock Jr (January 18, 1918 – August 25, 2000) was a World War II pilot who took part in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. Bock attended the University of Chicago and went on to enroll in a graduate course in philosoph ...

and his C-13 crew flew ''The Great Artiste'' to Nagasaki on its instrument support mission, and landed with it on Okinawa at the conclusion of the mission. It was the only aircraft to directly participate in both missions. ''

Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it be ...

'', flown by Captain George Marquardt's Crew B-10, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura, the primary target on the Nagasaki flight. ''Enola Gay'' reported clear skies over Kokura. In November 1945 it returned with the 509th Composite Group to

, where it remained for the rest of its flying career, except for a brief period when it was assigned to Task Force 1.5 for Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946. It returned to the 509th, now designated the 509th Bombardment Group, in September. On 3 September 1948, during a polar navigation training mission, it developed an engine problem after takeoff from Goose Bay Air Base,

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

, and ran off the end of the runway when attempting to land. Heavily damaged, it never flew again, and was eventually scrapped at Goose Bay in September 1949, despite its historical significance.

Displays

A representation of ''The Great Artiste'' is on static display at the "Spirit Gate" of Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, now home base of the 509th Operations Group. The aircraft, originally B-29 44-61671, which served as an SB-29 "Super Dumbo" rescue aircraft during the Korean War, was refurbished to depict ''The Great Artiste'' and moved to Whiteman after the closure of

Pease Air Force Base Pease, in Middle English, was a noun referring to the vegetable pea; see that article for its etymology. The word survives into modern English in pease pudding. Pease may also refer to: People * Pease family (Darlington), a prominent family in D ...

in 1991.

Hiroshima mission crew

Crew C-15 (normally assigned to ''The Great Artiste''): *Major Charles W. Sweeney, aircraft commander *1st Lieutenant Charles D. (Don) Albury, pilot *2nd Lieutenant Fred Olivi, co-pilot *Captain James Van Pelt, navigator *Captain Kermit K. Beahan, bombardier *Corporal Abe Spitzer, radio operator *Master Sergeant John D. Kuharek, flight engineer *Staff Sergeant Ray Gallagher, gunner, assistant flight engineer *Staff Sergeant Edward Buckley, radar operator *Sergeant Albert Dehart, tail gunner

Project Alberta Project Alberta, also known as Project A, was a section of the Manhattan Project which assisted in delivering the first nuclear weapons in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Project Alberta was formed in March 19 ...

observers aboard for Hiroshima mission: * Luis Alvarez *

Harold Agnew Harold Melvin Agnew (March 28, 1921 – September 29, 2013) was an American physicist, best known for having flown as a scientific observer on the Hiroshima bombing mission and, later, as the third director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory ...

Lawrence H. Johnston Lawrence Harding Johnston (February 11, 1918 – December 4, 2011) was an American physicist, a young contributor to the Manhattan Project. He was the only man to witness all three atomic explosions in 1945: the Trinity nuclear test in New Me ...

Ground crew: * Chester V. Pawlack * Charles B. Rinard * Claude c. Gilliam * Allan L. Moore * James J. Reilly * Theron L. Blaisdell * Robert E. Davenport

Nagasaki mission crew

Crew C-13 (normally assigned to ''

''): * Captain Frederick C. Bock, aircraft commander *Lieutenant Hugh C. Ferguson, co-pilot *Lieutenant Leonard A. Godfrey, navigator *Lieutenant Charles Levy, bombardier *Master Sergeant Roderick F. Arnold, flight engineer *Sergeant Ralph D. Belanger, assistant flight engineer *Sergeant Ralph D. Curry, radio operator *Sergeant William C. Barney, radar operator *Sergeant Robert J. Stock, tail gunner Observers aboard: *Staff Sergeant Walter Goodman (Project Alberta) *Lawrence H. Johnston (Project Alberta) *Technical Sergeant Jesse Kupferberg (Project Alberta) *

William L. Laurence William Leonard Laurence (March 7, 1888 – March 19, 1977) was a Jewish American science journalist best known for his work at ''The New York Times''. Born in the Russian Empire, he won two Pulitzer Prizes. As the official historian of the Ma ...

, correspondent for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Notes

References

* * *

External links

* * Sergeant Spitzer was radio operator for crew C-15 and maintained a detailed diary of his recollections of missions flown from Tinian, including both atomic missions. This collection is of photostats of the original pages. {{DEFAULTSORT:Great Artiste, The Individual aircraft of World War II Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1940s United States bomber aircraft Boeing B-29 Superfortress Individual aircraft in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution