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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 and handling characteristics, but it used non-nuclear conventional high explosives.
One serious incident occurred when a Pumpkin bomb was released in the bomb bay of the B-29 Strange Cargo while it was taxiing. The bomb fell through the closed bomb bay doors onto the taxiway. [ 35 ] The aircraft and bomb came to a halt in a shower of sparks, but fire fighters doused the plane and the bomb in foam, and the bomb did not explode.
On July 26, 1945 the Enola Gay also dropped a conventional "pumpkin bomb" in the Yagoto area of Nagoya as part of a bombing raid to train for the upcoming nuclear bombing mission to Hiroshima. [6] Nagoya was targeted for incendiary bombing because it was the center of the Japanese aircraft industry at the time.
The mission included three B-29 bombers and their crews: Bockscar, The Great Artiste and The Big Stink. Bockscar was flown on 9 August 1945 by Crew C-15, which usually manned The Great Artiste; piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney, commander of the 393d Bombardment Squadron; and co-piloted by First Lieutenant Charles Donald Albury, C-15's aircraft commander. [7]
Each Pumpkin bomb mission was conducted by a formation of three aircraft in the hope of convincing the Japanese military that small groups of B-29s did not justify a strong response. This strategy proved successful, and Japanese fighters only occasionally attempted to intercept the 509th Composite Group's aircraft. [ 27 ]
Fat Man Replica of the original Fat Man bomb Type Nuclear fission gravity bomb Place of origin United States Production history Designer Los Alamos Laboratory Produced 1945–1949 No. built 120 Specifications Mass 10,300 pounds (4,670 kg) Length 128 inches (3.3 m) Diameter 60 inches (1.5 m) Filling Plutonium Filling weight 6.2 kg Blast yield 21 kt (88 TJ) "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) was ...
The gun velocity needed to be only 1,000 feet per second (300 m/s), a third that of Thin Man. A corresponding reduction in the barrel length reduced the bomb's overall length to 6 feet (1.8 m). In turn, this made it much easier to handle, and permitted a conventional bomb shape, resulting in a more predictable flight. [56]
Big Stink also flew 12 training and practice missions, and two combat missions to drop pumpkin bombs on industrial targets at Nagaoka and Hitachi, Japan, both flown by Classen and crew A-5. Big Stink was flown by more crews (nine of the 15) on operational missions than any other 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29.