Airplane History
Bockscar, B-29-36-MO 44-27297, Victor number 77, was assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron of the 509th Composite Group. 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, as a Block 35 aircraft. It was one of 10 modified as a Silverplate and re-designated "Block 36". Delivered on 19 March 1945, to the USAAF, it was assigned to Capt. Frederick C. Bock and crew C-13 and flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah.
It left Wendover on 11 June 1945 for Tinian and arrived 16 June. It was originally given the Victor (unit-assigned identification) number 7 but on 1 August was given the triangle N tail markings of the 444th Bomb Group as a security measure and had its Victor changed to 77 to avoid misidentification with an actual 444th aircraft.
Bockscar was also used in 13 training and practice missions from Tinian, and three combat missions in which it dropped pumpkin bombs on industrial targets in Japan. Bock's crew bombed Niihama and Musashino, and 1st Lt. Don Albury and crew C-15 bombed Koromo.
It returned to the United States in November 1945 and served with the 509th at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. It was nominally assigned to the Operation Crossroads task force but there are no records indicating that it deployed for the tests. In August 1946 it was assigned to the 4105th Army Air Force Unit at Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, Arizona, for storage.
At Davis-Monthan it was placed on display as the aircraft that bombed Nagasaki, but in the markings of The Great Artiste. In September 1946 title was passed to the Air Force Museum (now the National Museum of the United States Air Force) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The aircraft was flown to the Museum on 26 September 1961, and its original markings were restored before the aircraft was put on display.
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