The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Rhodes

A B-29, specially modified, first dropped an atomic bomb—a dummy Thin Man—at Muroc Army Air Force Base in California on March 3, 1944. Restrained by sway-bracing, a bomb hung singly in the B-29’s bomb bay from a single release, and the first series of tests ended ignominiously that season when a release cable loosened and dumped one onto closed bomb-bay doors at 24,000 feet. “The doors were then opened,” a technical report notes, “and the bomb tore free, considerably damaging the doors.”2178 A second series of tests in June went better. Word that Fat Man would be heavier than previously estimated encouraged Norman Ramsey’s Delivery group to replace the original bomb-release mechanism, which had been modified from a standard glider tow release, with a sturdier British Lancaster bomber design. Lessons learned, the Air Force began modifying seventeen more B-29’s at the Glenn L. Martin plant in Omaha, Nebraska, in August; that month the service prepared to train a special group to deliver the first atomic bombs. The 393rd Bombardment Squadron, then based at Fairmont, Nebraska, in training for Europe, would form the nucleus of the new organization.