Fierce fighting by the more than 25,000 Japanese army men and the mass civilian suicides on Saipan left U.S. The taking of Tinian was preceded by the invasion of Saipan, also part of the Marianas, on June 15, 1944. military referred to Tinian with the codename "Destination." military because of its key strategic importance. Tinian, easy to supply by sea and perfect for launching air attacks against Japan, was desired by the U.S. This proximity to Japan is one reason Tinian served as the headquarters of the 509th Composite Group. The round-trip flight from Tinian to Tokyo took B-29s an average of twelve hours. One of three islands in the Northern Marianas, Tinian is less than forty square miles in size and located approximately 1,500 miles south of Tokyo. The towing cable is disconnected.Tinian Island was the launching point for the atomic bomb attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Parsons, USN" or Enola Gay weaponeer Deak Parsons, to the far leftįat Man is manually pushed to the bomb pitįat Man's alignment with the bomb pit is checked “A Second Kiss for Hirohito!” Signed by Rear Admiral W.R.
Note the signatures on the tail assembly and the "bomb" on the worker's shirtįat Man is lowered on to a transport dolly for the trip to the airfield. The Fat Man bomb being towed toward the airfield with an escort Norman Ramsey signing his name on Fat Man The assembled implosion sphere for Fat Man ready to be placed in the casing Little Boy has been successfully lifted into the bomb bay and is being attached to sway brackets that will keep it secure Little Boy is lifted via a hydraulic lift into the Enola GayĪ view from underneath the hydraulic lift, in the bomb bay Little Boy ready to be loaded into the Enola Gay
Little Boy ready to be lifted into the Enola Gay Manhattan Project scientists and military personnel gather around the bomb pit, ready to watch the Little Boy bomb being loaded into the Enola Gay Little Boy, covered by a protective tarp for security reasons Dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, it was the second nuclear weapon used in a war. In the implosion-type device, a core of sub-critical plutonium is surrounded by several thousand pounds of high-explosive designed in such a way that the explosive force of the HE is directed inwards thereby crushing the plutonium core into a super-critical state. The first was the "Gadget" detonated at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945. "Fat Man" was the second plutonium, implosion-type bomb.
This is the minimum amount of fissionable material needed to start a chain reaction. An explosive nuclear chain reaction occurs when a sufficient quantity of nuclear fuel, such as uranium or plutonium, is brought together to form a critical mass.