''The Great Artiste'' was a U.S. Army Air Forces

Silverplate Silverplate was the code reference for the United States Army Air Forces' participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II. Originally the name for the aircraft modification project which enabled a B-29 Superfortress bomber to drop a ...

B-29

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 torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

(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

Kermit Beahan Kermit King Beahan (August 9, 1918 – March 9, 1989) was a career officer in the United States Air Force and its predecessor United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He was the bombardier on the crew flying the Boeing B-29 Superfortres ...

, 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,

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, Ke ...

. 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

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 F ...

bomber. It was accepted by the Army Air Forces on 20 April 1945, and flown to Wendover Army Air Field,

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 ...

Charles D. Albury, in May. It departed Wendover for

North Field, Tinian North Field is a former World War II airfield on Tinian in the Mariana Islands. Abandoned after the war, today North Field is a tourist attraction. Along with several adjacent beaches on which Allied forces landed during the Battle of Tinian, th ...

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 Alec Trevelyan (006) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 James Bond film '' GoldenEye'', the first film to feature actor Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Trevelyan is portrayed by actor Sean Bean. The likeness of Bean as Ale ...

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, Captain

, with both the Norden bombsight 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 Guguan is an island in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The island is currently uninhabited. Guguan is located south from Alamagan and north from Saipan, and is northeast from Sarigan. History Guguan was discovered in 1668 b ...

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 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 Charles W. Sweeney, it was assigned to the Hiroshima 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'' 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 to

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

. Captain Frederick C. Bock 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'', 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 Roswell Army Air Field,

, 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 Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the ...

nuclear tests at

Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese: , , meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. After the Seco ...

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 Whiteman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located just south of Knob Noster, Missouri, United States. The base is the current home of the B-2 Spirit bomber. It is named for 2nd Lt George Whiteman, who was killed during the attac ...

, 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 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 1 ...

observers aboard for Hiroshima mission: * Luis Alvarez * Harold Agnew * Lawrence H. Johnston 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 '' Bockscar''): * 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, 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 d ...

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