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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 August 1945. The group was activated on 17 December 1944 at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah.
Near the end of his life, Sweeney wrote a controversial and factually disputed memoir of the atomic bombing and the 509th Composite Group, War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission. [26] [27] In War's End, Sweeney defended the decision to drop the atomic bomb in light of subsequent historical questioning. However, it was ...
On 10 July 1946, the group was renamed the 509th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) and the 320th TCS was disbanded. With the creation of the United States Air Force as a separate service, the group became the combat component of the 509th Bomb Wing on 17 November 1947, although it was not operational until 14 September 1948, when Col. John D. Ryan ...
The wing's 509th Operations Group is a direct descendant organization of the World War II 509th Composite Group (509th CG). The 509th CG had a single mission: to drop the atomic bomb . The group made history on 6 August 1945, when the Boeing B-29 Superfortress " Enola Gay ," piloted by Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. , dropped the first atomic bomb on ...
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 in 1991.
Luke the Spook was one of the fifteen Silverplate B-29s delivered to the 509th Composite Group for use in the atomic bomb operation and assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron. Built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft plant at Omaha, Nebraska , it was accepted by the USAAF on June 15, 1945, after most of the 509th CG had already left Wendover Army Air ...
The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima after the dropping of "Little Boy", photographed by Bob Caron. Technical Sergeant George Robert Caron (October 31, 1919 – June 3, 1995) was the tail gunner, the only defender of the twelve crewmen, aboard the B-29 Enola Gay during the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
The Army Air Forces also employed two composite groups with their own TO&Es: the 28th Bomb Group (15 B-24 and 30 B-25), and the 509th Composite Group (15 B-29 and 5 C-54). 19 heavy groups and one light bomb group were to be converted to very heavy groups for duty against Japan, but the war ended before the plan was carried out.