The city of 130,000 on the southern island of Kyushu was home to one of Japan’s biggest weapons arsenals, which according to American intelligence produced automatic weapons, combat vehicles, ordnance, and possibly poison gas.
Kokura-and not Nagasaki-was the original destination of the B-29 bomber convoy that flew over Japan 70 years ago on the morning of August 9, 1945.
Trailing hundreds of miles behind the Enola Gay, the Bockscar approached Japan carrying the most devastating weapon the world had ever known, and when the coded message crackled through the static that the primary target was visible and recommended for bombing, 25-year-old flight commander Major Charles Sweeney announced to his crew, “Kokura it is, men!” 16, the American aircraft spotted mostly clear skies above the city targeted for the second successive nuclear punch that the United States hoped would end World War II without a bloody invasion. Serving this time as a weather scout on Special Bombing Mission No. Three days after the Enola Gay dropped warfare’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the B-29 bomber once again droned high over Japan.
