Kermit King Beahan was a career officer in the United States Air Force and its predecessor United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He was the bombardier on the crew flying the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar on August 9, 1945, that dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.
Beahan in 1945
Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the second – and most recent – nuclear attack in history. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, Bockscar was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Bellevue, Nebraska, at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, and delivered to the United States Army Air Forces on 19 March 1945. It was assigned to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, in April and was named after captain Frederick C. Bock.
Bockscar
Bockscar at Dayton before it was moved indoors. On the Nagasaki mission, it flew without nose art, and with a triangle N tail marking, rather than the circle arrowhead shown here.
Bockscar with temporary triangle N tail marking, on 9 August 1945, the day of its atomic bombing mission
Preserved Tinian "bomb pit #2", where Fat Man was loaded aboard Bockscar
