Atmospheric Nuclear Detonation - Little Boy
image - littleboy.jpg

Test:Little Boy; Date:August 6, 1945;
Operation:?; Site:Hiroshima,Japan;
Detonation:Air Delivered; Yield:15.00kt; Type:Fission,U²³⁵;

   Significant and historic as the first combat use of an atomic weapon ever, on August 6, 1945 the United States of America detonated an atomic device code-named Little Boy over Hiroshima, Japanat exactly 8:16:02 a.m., at an altitude of 1900 ft, and at a position of 34°23'44''N, 132°27'13''E, approx 150m from the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Upon detonation, the bomb released the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT (15kT), and created a mushroom cloud that rose to 45,000 feet. In an instant 80,000 to 140,000 people were killed and 100,000 more were seriously injured, mortally burned, or fatally irradiated. Of the 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima 60,000 were totally destroyed. The blast height wasn't optimum for this yield, however, but perversely it prevented any significant radioactive fallout over the rest of Japan. Little Boy was based upon simpler, but less efficient gun-type design than the Gadget evice used in Trinity test, which was an implosion bomb. Originally the gun-type scheme has been proposed for the Plutonium bomb, but later when the more efficient, but risk,y implosion design has been chosen for the Plutonium bomb, serious attention returned to uranium one. The uranium gun program, lead by A. Francis Birch faced a difficult task. They had to build the bomb, without testing, yet be absolutely sure that it would work. There simply was not enough Uranium to both test and drop in anger, and sufficient amount of enriched Uranium was only available by mid 1945. The actual device has been ready for combat use by May 1945.
    Little boy used 64.1kg Uranium. 50kg 89% enriched and the rest was 50% enriched. U²³⁵ has been separated into two parts, the bullet which weighted approx. 26kg and the target weighting 38kg. The barrel has been borrowed from the anti-aircraft gun. The bore was modified to accommodated the new Uranium bullet. Conventional artillery smokeless powder would drive the bullet at 300 m/sec velocity once ignited.
    USS Indianapolis (CA-35) delivered Little boy components to Tinian base on July 26, apart from the target assembly, which was delivered two days later. Originally the plan was to deliver the bomb on Aug. 1, but due to the weather conditions the operation plan has been altered, and on Aug. 6. at 00:00 Col. Tibbets received final debriefing. Hiroshima was the primary target, with Kokura and Nagasaki being alternative targets.
    Little Boy - delivered by B29 Bomber Enola Gay, crew:
Colonel Paul Tibbets - Commander; Captain Robert Lewis - Co-Pilot;
Captain Theodore Van Kirk - Navigator; Major Thomas Ferebee - Bombardier;
Lieutenant Jacob Beser - Electronic Countermeasures; Sergeant Joseph Stiborik - Radar Operator;
Private Richard Nelson - Radar Operator; Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duzenbury - Flight Engineer;
Staff Sergeant Robert Caron - Tail Gunner; Captain Deke Parson - Weaponeer;
2nd Lieutenant Morris Jeppson - Ordinance Expert;
    Few minutes after the explosion, seeing what has happened, Robert Lewis wrote in his journal:My God, what have we done?