Pat Shingleton for Aug. 9, 2012

Following the bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, resulting in up to 140,000 deaths, the Makurazaki Typhoon hit the city one month later, killing 1,200. As noted in a previous column, the second A-bombing of Japan was scheduled Aug. 11, but was moved up two days due to expected bad weather. The originally selected city of Kokura was later changed to Nagasaki. On Aug. 9, 1945, a B-29 bomber, nicknamed Bockscar, after its commander, Capt. Frederick Bock Jr., took off from the island of Tinian with a 9,000-pound plutonium bomb named Fat Man with a blast equivalent of 21 kilotons of TNT. Maj. Charles Sweeney flew Bockscar; Bock flew one of two weather observation planes that scouted the target areas. At 11:02 a.m., the nuclear inferno was unleashed 500 yards above the surface. Fastcast: Showers.