B-29-40-MO 44-27354 was built at the
Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at
Omaha, Nebraska, accepted by the U.S. Army Air Forces on 20 April 1945, and flown to
Wendover Army Air Field,
Utah, by its assigned crew A-5 (under
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Classen, aircraft commander and group deputy commander) in May 1945. It departed Wendover for
North Field on
Tinian on 24 June 1945 and arrived 29 June 1945. The aircraft originally was assigned the Victor (unit-assigned identification) number 10 but on 1 August 1945 was given the
circle R tail markings of the
6th Bombardment Group as a security measure and had its Victor changed to 90 to avoid misidentification with actual 6th Bombardment Group aircraft. On 23 July 1945, with
Colonel Paul Tibbets at the controls, it dropped a dummy "
Little Boy"
atomic bomb assembly off Tinian to test its
radar altimeter detonators. On 6 August 1945, the aircraft was flown by crew B-8 (commanded by
First Lieutenant Charles McKnight) as a back-up spare but landed on
Iwo Jima when all other aircraft in the flight continued on. The airplane was reassigned to crew C-12 (under
Captain Captain Herman S. Zahn) immediately following the Nagasaki mission, who named the airplane
Big Stink and had nose art applied.
Big Stink also flew 12 training and practice missions, and two combat missions to drop
pumpkin bombs on industrial targets at
Nagaoka and
Hitachi, Japan, both flown by Classen and crew A-5.
Big Stink was flown by more crews (nine of the 15) on operational missions than any other 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29. After World War II,
Big Stink served with the 509th Composite Group at
Roswell Army Air Field. In April 1946 it was assigned to
Operation Crossroads, and renamed '''''Dave's Dream'''
by its crew in honor of Captain David Semple, a bombardier who had been killed in the crash of another B-29 on 7 March 1946, near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Semple had been a bombardier in many of the 155 test drops for the Manhattan Project. On 1 July 1946, Dave's Dream'' while under the command of Major
Woodrow Swancutt (who would become a
major general in the
United States Air Force) dropped the "
Fat Man"-type atomic bomb used in Test Able of
Operation Crossroads at
Bikini Atoll. In June 1949 ''Dave's Dream'', operating in the by-then-independent
United States Air Force, was transferred to the
97th Bombardment Group at
Biggs Air Force Base,
Texas. It was converted to a TB-29 training aircraft in April 1950 by the Oklahoma City Materiel Area at
Tinker Air Force Base. It was subsequently assigned to: • 106th Radar Calibration Squadron,
Sioux City Air Force Base,
Iowa (October 1952) • 7th Radar Calibration Squadron, Sioux City Air Force Base (September 1953), and • 4677th Radar Evaluation Flight,
Hill Air Force Base,
Utah (March 1954) In June 1959 it was moved into storage at
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base,
Arizona, and was dropped from the U.S. Air Force inventory in February 1960 as salvage.
Hiroshima mission crew Crew B-8 (regularly assigned to
Top Secret): • 1st Lt. Charles F. McKnight, airplane commander • 2nd Lt. Jacob Y. Bontekoe, co-pilot • 2nd Lt. Jack Widowsky, navigator • 2nd Lt. Franklin H. MacGregor, bombardier • 1st Lt. George H. Cohen, flight engineer • Sgt. Lloyd J. Reeder, radio operator • T/Sgt. William F. Orren, radar operator • Sgt. Roderick E. Legg, tail gunner • Cpl. Donald O. Cole, assistant engineer/scanner
Nagasaki mission crew Crew C-14 (normally assigned to
Necessary Evil; 1st Lt. Norman Ray): •
Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, former commander of
617 "Dambusters" squadron, and official representative of the British Prime Minister • Professor
William Penney, a member of
Project Alberta and the leading expert on the predicted effects of nuclear weapons. ==Other aircraft named
Big Stink==