Charles Sweeney and the Suffocating Mantle of Responsibility
This is Charles Sweeney. When he was only 26 years old,
Uncle Sam asked him to kill 75,000 people.
Think back to whatever it was you were doing when you were 26 years old. I was a newly minted Army captain who only thought he had a responsible job. I wouldn’t trust most of today’s 26-year-olds unsupervised with wood glue. However, there was a time when we asked a great deal of such kids.
Charles Sweeney was born two days after Christmas in 1919, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was 22 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Tragically, his cohort was one of those that bore the brunt of the fighting during World War 2.
Sweeney was one of sixteen million Americans who answered the nation’s call to arms. He completed pilot training and found himself flying C46 and C47 transport aircraft as part of the 509th Composite Group commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets. In April of 1945, his unit began flying C54 Skymasters as well. The following month, Sweeney took command of the 393d Bombardment Squadron, Heavy–a subcomponent of the 509th. Major Charles Sweeney was therefore responsible for fifteen Silverplate B29 Superfortresses and some 535 men. In June of that year, Sweeney and the 393d relocated to North Field on the island of Tinian in the Marianas.
The B29 Superfortress program was the largest single
monetary expenditure of World War 2. Public domain.
The Machine
The B29 Superfortress project was the most expensive undertaking of WW2. The B29 was hands-down the most advanced bomber of the war. Featuring a pressurized cabin, remotely-operated gun turrets, a service ceiling of 31,850 feet, and a bomb load of up to 20,000 pounds, the B29 would revolutionize air combat.
Silverplate B29’s were those that were modified to deliver nuclear weapons. These aircraft were stripped of their defensive armament and modified to accommodate the unusual geometry of the Fat Man and Little Boy atomic bombs. A standard B29 cost $782,000 in 1945. That would be around $14 million today. The Silverplate modifications cost another $32,000. Sixty-five B29’s were thusly modified.
It had only been 42 years since the Wright brothers’ first flight. Aviation technology had advanced so quickly that the human component struggled to keep up. As a result, on 9 August 1945, it was 26-year-old Charles Sweeney who found himself as the command pilot for Bockscar, the Silverplate B29 slated to deliver the second atomic weapon onto a carefully-selected target in Japan. This was the plutonium-based bomb code named Fat Man.
These are atomic bomb casings staged at Tinian in the closing
days of World War 2. Had the Japanese not capitulated when they
did, the world would have seen a great deal more carnage. Public domain.
The Mission
The first attack had gone in three days prior under the command of Colonel Tibbets, and it had been essentially flawless. By contrast, the second drop seemed positively cursed. The problems began before takeoff.
The B29 was an incredibly complicated airplane. Engine fires plagued these early machines. Prior to takeoff, Major Sweeney’s ground crew informed him that a faulty fuel transfer pump was going to trap 625 gallons of aviation fuel in the tail of the aircraft. This would cut at least 45 minutes off of the big plane’s endurance. This was the second-most important aerial combat mission of World War 2. With the weight of the universe on his shoulders, Sweeney did a little quick math and decided to crack on.
The weather was marginal, and the mission called for an airborne rendezvous with The Great Artiste and The Big Stink, two other Silverplate B29’s carrying technical gear to monitor the experimental bomb’s effects. After climbing to 30,000 feet above Yakushima Island, the rendezvous point, Sweeney found The Great Artiste but not The Big Stink. At the urging of Commander Frederick Ashworth, the weaponeer for the bomb, Sweeny delayed a further half hour before striking out for his primary target without the third plane.
The primary target was actually Kokura, Japan. American war planners had intentionally spared a handful of Japanese cities so they could be used to demonstrate the power of these new atomic weapons. However, once they arrived above Kokura they found the target obscured with 7/10th cloud. Bockscar had bomb-guiding radar equipment onboard. However, the mission parameters specified that they make a visual drop if at all possible.
Sweeney made three runs across Kokura but could not get a visual lock on the target. After the third run, Japanese antiaircraft fire was getting uncomfortably close and fighters could be seen climbing up to intercept. With fuel now becoming an issue, 26-year-old Major Charles Sweeney had a tough decision to make.
The Combat Drop
Major Sweeney made the call on the fly to index to Nagasaki, the secondary target. Upon arrival, they found downtown Nagasaki also obscured with dense cloud cover. As they began setting up for a radar run, the cloud broke just enough for the bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, to get a glimpse of the details. He released the weapon at 1101 local time. The bomb detonated 47 seconds later directly above a tennis court.
Fat Man went off some 1.9 miles northwest of the planned strike point. As a result, much of the blast was captured within the Urakami Valley, sparing a substantial portion of the city. Regardless, the explosion still claimed 35,000 lives. Nearly 40,000 more succumbed later to lingering effects.
Not Out of the Woods Yet…
After all the delays, Bockscar was running on fumes. Even diverting to Yontan Airfield, an emergency airstrip in Okinawa seized by the Marines a short six weeks before, Major Sweeney only had enough gas for a single straight-in approach. His number 2 engine died of fuel starvation on final approach.
Sweeney was unable to raise the tower on the radio, so he fired off every flare onboard the aircraft in an effort at getting all of the other approaching planes out of the way. He brought the big Superfort in fast and hard, touching down midway down the runway a full 20 mph faster than was typical. A second engine died immediately after touchdown, slewing the massive machine left toward a row of parked B24 Liberators.
Sweeney and his copilot literally stood on the brakes. With great difficulty, they got the careening airplane back onto the runway. However, now unable to reverse the props, Bockscar was headed straight for a sheer drop-off overlooking the Pacific Ocean at the end of the rapidly-shrinking runway. Sweeney whipped the big plane into a violent 90-degree turn at the very last minute, saving it from utter destruction.
Colonel Tibbets and General Curtis LeMay considered disciplinary action against Sweeney afterwards. However, LeMay decided that little would be gained by doing so. In 1946, Charles Sweeney left active duty at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and entered the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Sweeney flew during the Berlin Airlift and served as Civil Defense director for the city of Boston. He retired in 1976 at the rank of Major General and died in 2004 at the age of 84. His experience on that fateful day over Japan back in 1945 just demonstrates that we sometimes ask an awful lot of our 26-year-olds.
