U.S. Air Force Museum and Bockscar

Part of our Manhattan Project Quest is to see the actual Enola Gay and Bockscar, the two bombers that dropped the atom bombs on Japan to end WWII. We've already seen the Enola Gay, and now we are able to cross the Bockscar off our list. It is housed in the very large, very spectacular National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. If you like planes, this is the place for you. And even if planes aren't your thing, it is still really cool to visit and explore (especially since it's free admission). The museum is broken up into various ages of aircraft - WWI and prior; WWII; Korea; Vietnam; Cold War; Spacecraft; and Presidential aircraft.

We had just left Dayton Aviation, so seeing this Wright flyer fabric and an early plane the Wright brother's help build was a great tie-in for our earlier adventure.

As always, the WWI and WWII stuff is extraordinarily interesting to me. I really enjoyed seeing the pink German prototype plane but into action in 1918. I also found the Nazi glider interesting, as this is how Nazi pilots trained when Germany was under a moratorium for developing and using powered aircraft during the inter-war years.

Many WWII aficionados recognize the Memphis Belle - the first heavy bomber (B-17 Flying Fortress) to complete 25 combat missions and return to the United States without ever having lost a crew member, which was very rare during the war. The plane and crew were then sent on a war bond tour across the U.S.

Who doesn't like to see the tail of a Nazi plane with a few bullet holes in it?!?! (Well, maybe not the 1940s Germans...)

And for the main event..... Bockscar

Bockscar was the bomber that dropped the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Luckily, Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. They had mock-ups of both Fat Man and Little Boy near the bomber.

They also have some personal artifacts from Lt. Fred Olivi, the third pilot on the Bockscar. What I found most fascinating, however, was this cloth map of Japan that the crew carried with them.