I guess there were many things I could have been worrying about on that summer afternoon in 1945. But at that particular time, the prospect of spending the night with sharks in the North Pacific was not nearly so distressing as the haunting suspicion that we missed our target with an atomic bomb.
Quiet tension gripped our World War II heavy bomber. Suddenly, the B-29’s intercom system came to life.
“There it is, you guys—there it is!” The Okinawa island group came into view almost dead ahead as we skirted a towering cumulus cloud. An hour and forty minutes before, not even our usually optimistic navigator thought we had a chance of making it. The outboard tanks had already been run dry, and the inboard tanks were nudging the empty mark.
The plane began to lose altitude as the pilot throttled back and dropped the nose. Glancing quickly at the instrument panel, he motioned toward the radio.
“Tell ’em we don’t have enough gas to risk a standard approach!”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a busy tower. The air was saturated with radio transmissions asking for instructions and information. The co-pilot made several calls: “Yontan Tower, this is Army 359, over.” The contacts were not acknowledged. Finally, Major Sweeney, the pilot, grabbed the microphone: “Mayday . . . Mayday. ...” The international distress call was unheard. The routine transmissions continued. Even the standard pyrotechnic display from the Very pistol produced no results. Losing his patience fast, Sweeney fired every color we had left and once more went on the air, “I’m coming in!”
After we had barrelled into the traffic pattern, somebody finally got the idea something was wrong. As we turned on to the final approach, we could see fire trucks, ambulances, and everything else racing out to the runway. In accordance with emergency procedures, Sweeney came in high, and we had used up nearly half of the short strip before we touched down. I was braced, fully expecting the B-29 to quickly gobble up the remaining short distance and go tearing through the boondocks. But a sudden commanding roar from the reversed propellers brought us to a quick stop. As we turned on to the taxi strip, the two inboard engines conked out. I was so glad to be on the ground that I wouldn’t have cared if the other two had quit.
It was only a short wait until the other two B-29’s arrived, the instrument plane and the observation plane. As we compared notes, my fears were confirmed. Our best estimate showed that we had missed the target. I had sent a coded strike message back to Guam right after we had dropped the bomb; now I would have to send in a more detailed report to clarify the points on which I had hedged in the strike report. I flagged down a passing jeep and hitched a ride to the headquarters of the Eighth Air Force, which was stationed at Yontan Field. The driver let me off at the communications shack.
“How long will it take to send a message to Guam?” I inquired. The captain at the desk looked up. His eyes narrowed and a discernible frown creased his forehead as he took in my appearance. I started to ask him what he thought a guy should look like after a ten-hour mission.
“Sorry, we’re busy,” he replied brusquely. I was about to protest when I realized that my disheveled person was devoid of all rank and insignia. Anyway, I was too tired to fight with anybody. There was an easier way.
“Where are General Doolittle’s quarters,” I countered. The somewhat surprised captain pointed across the way. I guess nobody on Okinawa had very elaborate quarters then. I found General Doolittle in the inevitable GI pyramidal tent.
“Commander Frederick L. Ashworth, U. S. Navy, reporting, sir. We’ve just dropped the second atomic bomb over Nagasaki. We need to send a report back to Guam, but your communications people aren’t cooperating.”
If I had expected a definite reaction from General Doolittle, I would have been disappointed. “Well, son, sit down and tell me about it.” I guess that quiet response was what I needed to calm me down a little. But as I began relating the events of our mission, I had the peculiar sensation that the whole situation was unreal and that I was back at the Naval Proving Ground.
It was there, at Dahlgren, Virginia, that I had been introduced to the Manhattan Engineering District program. The late Admiral William S. Parsons, then associate director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, had put in a request to the Navy Department for some help —for someone with an ordnance background and some combat experience. Somebody pointed a finger at me.
I had completed a postgraduate course in aviation ordnance engineering at Annapolis just before the war broke out. When the shooting actually started, I was serving a tour of duty in the production division of the Bureau of Ordnance. Later, in combat, I was given command of Torpedo Squadron Eleven, in which assignment I became pretty familiar with Japanese shipping and shore installations. Anyway, they said I was it. So, in November, 1944, I got in the atomic bomb business. My job called for me to shuttle between Los Alamos and Wendover, Utah, to coordinate the testing of non-nuclear components of this new hush-hush project. I would spend three weeks at Wendover and one week at Los Alamos. This routine continued till one day when I was summoned to Washington. There I was given a letter signed by Admiral Ernest J. King, cominch, and was directed to deliver it personally to Admiral Chester Nimitz, CinCPacFleet, with headquarters in Guam.
I had less trouble getting across the Pacific than I had getting across the room to see the Admiral. His Aide couldn’t understand why I had to see him in person. Finally, my persistence paid off. Inside the Admiral’s office, I unbuttoned my shirt and removed from my beat-up money belt a perspiration-soaked envelope containing a dog-eared letter. The letter consisted of a single paragraph stating that about the first of August, there would be available in the Pacific a device called the atomic bomb. The Admiral wasn’t too impressed. That was February. How was he going to fight a war with a weapon that wasn’t going to be available for nearly six months?
While in Guam, I was to go to Tinian and select sites for the warehouses and bomb assembly buildings that were needed to support the atomic bomb operation. I guess that island commander, a brigadier general, thought I was crazy. All I could tell him was that I needed to stake out some real estate for some buildings, and I couldn’t even tell him what for. After giving me an odd look, he shrugged his shoulders and consented. “Okay, I’ve got plenty of space up on the north end of the island,” he said. “Go up and take your choice.”
With the ground work accomplished, I went back to Los Alamos to help get things in shape for the move out to Tinian. The project personnel started moving into Tinian in May, bringing over by Victory Ships the equipment and non-nuclear parts of the bombs. We were getting lined up for full scale production. We couldn’t gamble on two bombs doing the trick. I left Los Alamos with the final contingent of scientific personnel in June. At that time, everybody there was sweating and straining to get ready for that first atomic detonation, which was slated to go off on the Fourth of July in order that President Truman might have the pertinent data before he left for the Potsdam Conference. However, he had to leave without it. The Fourth of July was one explosion short. The Nation’s first nuclear shot didn’t take place until the 16th of July. The information describing the technical performance of this new awesome weapon was flown to President Truman in Potsdam. It was there that Russia’s Premier Stalin first learned that there was such a thing as an atomic bomb. And it was on the basis of the availability of this new weapon that the Potsdam Ultimatum was issued to the Japanese. This ultimatum, which history has recorded as threatening systematic destruction of Japanese cities if rejected, was ignored by Emperor Hirohito as not worthy of his consideration. So the schedule was set up. These cities would die: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kokura, Nagasaki, and Niigata. Secretary of War Stimson later scratched Kyoto from the list because of its cultural influence on the future of Japan.
Admiral Parsons took the first run. He and I had been personally selected by General Leslie Groves to act as tactical commanders. The General insisted that he must maintain control of things by placing aboard the bombing planes his personal representative fully informed of the bomb’s capability and technical operation. As a matter of fact, the Air Force personnel involved—with the exception of the Group Commander—did not know, until the briefing three hours before takeoff—what was really taking place. Everything went according to schedule on the Hiroshima run. A perfect drop was made during perfect weather. Detonation was scheduled for 0815 Japanese time, and the explosion was recorded at 0815:45. Our flight was more than a little different.
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning, and I was taking a last look at a big map in the operations room when I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Well, Dick, it looks like you got the joker in this deal.” If anybody could have known how I felt at that time, it would have been Admiral Parsons. Of course, when he departed for Hiroshima, the weather was perfect. It seemed all officialdom was there and flash bulbs were popping all over the place. Now, we were practically alone, and the flashes were searing streaks of lightning. The local weather was just about as poor as you could expect. We had upped the schedule by four days to take advantage of good weather in Japan which had followed a typhoon some days earlier.
My concern was soon multiplied. A jeep screeched to a stop outside, and in rushed a nearly soaked crew chief. The booster pump in the after bomb bay was inoperative. That meant 800 gallons of gas we wouldn’t be able to use. I turned and took another look at the map. Maybe we could complete our mission and still make it back to Okinawa.
“Do you think you ought to try it, Dick?” Parsons asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, “Major Sweeney thinks we can make it.”
According to the tactical plan used in the Hiroshima bombing, two weather planes had taken off nearly an hour before to scout the targets. Two other B-29’s, an instrumentation plane and an observation plane, were waiting to take off. We were to take off individually and rendezvous over Yakashima, just off the southeastern coast of Kyushu. As we taxied out to takeoff position, I could see fire truck after fire truck lined up along the runway—just in case we should crack-up on takeoff. They figured that if we did start a fire, they could put it out before it “cooked off” the atomic bomb we were carrying.
An uneventful flight took us to Yakashima. About five minutes after we reached the rendezvous point, another B-29 arrived. We waited about fifty minutes for the third plane. We couldn’t wait any longer. En route to the target, the scouting planes reported to us that the weather at Kokura and Nagasaki was good. So we headed for Kokura, our primary target. However, at 30,000 feet over Kokura, we looked down at a heavy concentration of haze and smoke, apparently resulting from a bombing attack the night before on Yawata, just across the river. That place was still burning. On a slant look at the target—the view necessary for visual bombing—we were unable to see where the bomb was supposed to be released. However, when we were over the target vertically, the view was quite clear, which, of course, was too late for us to release the bomb. We made three runs over the target from three different directions, hoping to get off a visual release. General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, had specified that he did not want the atomic bomb dropped by radar. It was mandatory that the bomb should be dropped visually.
After the third pass over Kokura, ground anti-aircraft fire opened up on us. Shortly after, we saw about twenty fighters on their way up. The decision to get out of there and head for our secondary target of Nagasaki was not difficult to make. The flight engineer announced that we had only 1200 gallons of gas left (about four hours). In his opinion, that was insufficient fuel to get us back to Okinawa with the atomic bomb. This confirmed the necessity for dropping the bomb. Picking up a heading for Nagasaki, we decided to chance it directly across Kyushu, which was literally dotted with Japanese fighter bases. Our original flight plan called for us to go back out to sea and around Kyushu—if we had to go to the secondary target.
At this point, we broke radio silence to notify air-sea rescue teams that we might have to ditch south of Japan. As we approached Nagasaki, the weather appeared to have deteriorated to almost solid overcast. That left us in a real pickle. Here we were supposed to drop an atomic bomb on Nagasaki under visual conditions, and we couldn’t even see Nagasaki! We had no third target assigned. The only other Japanese city earmarked for atomic destruction was Niigata, which was way up on the northwest coast of Honshu, and which we couldn’t have reached anyway. And we certainly couldn’t take the bomb back to Okinawa. I finally told the bombardier to go ahead and bomb by radar—if he had to. The mountains and the bay showed up prominently on the radar scope. There was no doubt that this was Nagasaki. As we neared the target, there were indications that the overcast was not solid. As we flew almost directly over the target, we discovered that there was about five-tenths cloud coverage.
At the last minute—actually about the last twenty seconds, the bombardier, who had been following very closely the radar run, and who had been receiving dropping angles from the radar operator, detected what he thought was the aiming point, a bend in the river flowing through the middle of Nagasaki. He yelled that he had his bomb sight on the target and let go visually.
Upon bomb release, Major Sweeney wheeled the big bomber into a 60-degree bank and turned 150 degrees to effect maximum clearance from the bomb. When the bomb detonated, we were 30,000 feet above it and, by then, several miles away from it. But even with the dark goggles we all were wearing, it was obvious when the bomb exploded. In addition to the bright flash, there came, several seconds later, the telltale shock waves—not two as we had expected, but three. Since it was an air burst, we knew we could expect to feel the direct shock wave and the shock wave reflected from the ground. Such was the reported experience of the Hiroshima mission. But that third one alarmed us. We thought it was antiaircraft fire. Later, we learned that the third shock wave was reflected from the mountain. In less than five minutes, the characteristic mushroom had risen up to our altitude of 30,000 feet. Our gas shortage restricted us to one turn around the atomic cloud, after which we picked up a heading for Okinawa. On the way, I pulled out my target chart. A prolonged examination produced a gnawing uncertainty. I knew we had hit Nagasaki—but did we hit our target?
“What do you think? Did you hit the target?” The question somewhat startled me. It was the first time General Doolittle had spoken during my story.
“No sir, I don’t think we did. According to the observers in the other two planes and according to our own analysis, we planted the bomb right here, about a mile and a half northeast of the target.” The General leaned over and took a closer look at the map. A smile played upon his lips. Then, he stood up and put his arm around my shoulders.
“Well, Son, I wouldn’t worry a bit about that mission. I’m sure that General Spaatz will be much happier to know that the bomb went off up there in the industrial area instead of over the city of Nagasaki.”
“Now, I’ll help you out with that communication.” He picked up his phone and asked for Communications. “Doolittle speaking. How long will it take to get a message to Guam?” he asked. There was a brief pause, and then he said, “Well, I’m sending over the same Navy Commander who was in there a few minutes ago, and this time I want you to get his message off!”
I heard that “Yes, Sir” loud and clear across the room.
Graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in the Class of 1933, Captain Ashworth served throughout World War II in aviation assignments, culminated in personally participating in the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Since then, he participated in Operation Crossroads, served with the Atomic Energy Commission and in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and at sea as the executive officer of the Midway and commanding officer of the Carson. At present Captain Ashworth is the commanding officer of the Franklin D. Roosevelt.
★
NO DETAIL WAS OVERLOOKED
Contributed by Commander R. A. Brockhouse, USNR
During an inspection of the ship’s mooring lines it was noted that rat guards were missing from a number of the shipyard service lines. Upon a later reinspection it was observed that all the previous discrepancies had been corrected including a very small guard on the telephone line which was neatly labeled “mouse guard.”
★
MRS. O’NEILL’S SON, JOHNNY
Contributed by Captain Jesse B. Gay, Jr., USN
My father has many amusing tales of life in the Navy in the early part of this century, some of my favorites being those concerning the Ship’s Boatswain in the old Wisconsin. This Boatswain, an eccentric individual who always referred to himself as “Mrs. O’Neill’s son, Johnny,” prided himself on his ability to carry out any order from higher authority no matter how difficult or seemingly meaningless.
On one occasion the Wisconsin was making the pier at Bremerton with the Executive Officer supervising the forward lines from the forward part of the bridge and the Navigator supervising the after lines from the after bridge. “Move her forward six feet,” called the Exec to the Boatswain on the Main Deck amidships. “Move her aft six feet,” ordered the Navigator, having missed the Exec’s order given just previously.
Mrs. O’Neill’s son, Johnny, was in complete charge of the situation. He just blew on his pipe and bellowed fore and aft, “STRETCH HER.”
(The Naval Institute will pay $5.00 for each anecdote accepted for publication in the Proceedings.)