Deploying Gimmick (March, 1991)

This article is about Jacob Beser, who was on both atomic-bomb missions.

Early on in the article he says that it would take ten to twelve hours for the dust to settle after the explosion. He adds that Hiroshima was the “designated command and control center” to the projected invasion of the US forces on the Japanese islands themselves, thus making it an important target.

Beser's job was to record all the plane conversation for historical purposes.

After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Enola Gay went into a right turn of 158 degrees and dropped some 3,200 feet to get as far away from the explosion as it could. Despite Beser's warning to the crew to watch their language, the conversation ended up not as clean as he wanted.

”I saw the mushroom cloud that had climbed above our flight level, and beneath it was a churning, boiling mass of flame and debris where only minutes before had been a thriving city.”

He adds the mushroom cloud was visible over 200 miles away as they returned to Tinian.

He then went on the flight for the Nagasaki bombing, and records the problems that mission had with weather and fuel. They even had trouble landing when they got back to their base. It's a rather exciting story that he tells.

In an addition to the article, entitled “Author's Unique Perspective,” there is more information, including an account of a Japanese 2nd Lt. who was two miles from the blast epicenter at Hiroshima. He talks about the injured people he saw, and it's quite gruesome.

”Gimmick,” by the way, was another term for the atomic bomb.



Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page