Bockscar Seth Davenport

Bockscar was the B-29 that dropped the second atomic bomb on japan 1945. Jackson made the cockpit from charred wood and a view from windscreen in Formica. The blackened wood evokes destruction, but Jackson says the pastel hues recalls the sunset in idealize 19th century American landscape paintings. Formica was used for airplane propellers in world war 2, and then in postwar suburban homes. On August ninth 1945 bockscar piloted by the 393d  commander major Charles w. Sweeney dropped the fat man nuclear bomb with the equivalent of 21 kilotons of TNT over the city of Nagasaki. About forty-four percent of the city was destroyed 3500 people died and 60000 people were injured.  Bockscar had been flown by Sweeney and crew C-15 in three test drop rehearsals of inert Fat Man assemblies in the eight days leading up to the second mission, including the final rehearsal the day before. During pre-flight inspection of Bockscar, the flight engineer notified Sweeney that an inoperative fuel transfer pump made it impossible to use 640 US gallons of fuel carried in a reserve tank.After the war, Bockscar returned to the United States in November 1945 and served with the 509th at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. It was nominally assigned to the Operation Crossroads task force, but there are no records indicating that it deployed for the tests. In August 1946 it went to Army Air Force Unit at Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, Arizona, for storage.