Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

For all the careful preparations on Tinian, however, something was amiss. At about seven, Ashworth and his assistant noted a blinking red light that should not have been on. The light began blinking faster. For a moment they panicked, believing that the bomb might be on the verge of detonating in flight, with unfavorable consequences for the Bockscar and its crew. Working quickly, with adrenaline surging, they unrolled the bomb’s blueprints and studied the circuitry. Then they removed the outer casing and examined the switches. Bizarrely, given the care apparently practiced by the technicians on the ground, two had been set in the wrong positions. They reset the switches, and the warning light went out. The two men replaced the casing, and did not breathe a word of what had happened until decades later.