509th Composite Group

The 509th Composite Group (509 CG) was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces created during World War II and tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons. It conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

For the active organization, see 509th Operations Group.

509th Composite Group

17 December 1944 – 10 July 1946

United States

United States Army ( Army Air Forces

Bombardment and air transport composite

Atomic warfare

1767 personnel, 15 B-29 and 5 C-54 aircraft

313th Bombardment Wing
Twentieth Air Force

North Field (Tinian), Mariana Islands

World War II

Asiatic-Pacific Campaign (1945)

Paul Tibbets

The group was activated on 17 December 1944 at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. Tibbets. Because it contained flying squadrons equipped with Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers, C-47 Skytrain, and C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft, the group was designated as a "composite", rather than a "bombardment" formation. It operated Silverplate B-29s, which were specially configured to enable them to carry nuclear weapons.

The 509th Composite Group began deploying to North Field on Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, in May 1945. In addition to the two nuclear bombing raids, it carried out 15 practice missions against Japanese-held islands, and 12 combat missions against targets in Japan dropping high-explosive pumpkin bombs.

In the postwar era, the 509th Composite Group was one of the original ten bombardment groups assigned to Strategic Air Command on 21 March 1946 and the only one equipped with Silverplate B-29 Superfortress aircraft capable of delivering atomic bombs. It was standardized as a bombardment group and redesignated the 509th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy, on 10 July 1946.

17 individual training sorties without ordnance,

15 practice bombing missions between 1 and 22 July against airfields on Japanese-held , Marcus, Rota, and Guguan in which 90 B-29 sorties dropped 500- and 1000-pound bombs to practice radar and visual bombing procedures,^[49]

Truk

12 combat missions between 20 and 29 July against targets in Japan dropping high-explosive pumpkin bombs, in which 37 B-29 sorties delivered conventional-bomb replications of the Fat Man: four on 20 July, three on 24 July, two on 26 July, and three on 29 July. Some 27 sorties were made visually and 10 by radar, striking 17 primary targets, 15 secondary targets, and five targets of opportunity. Two other aircraft did not drop their bombs: one jettisoned its pumpkin bomb into the sea near Iwo Jima, and the Strange Cargo's bomb came loose from the bomb rack and plunged through the closed bomb bay doors while the bomber was still on the ground. One B-29 incurred minor battle damage in the attacks.^[51] Flying at 30,000 feet (9,100 m) put them above the effective range of flak.^[52] Each pumpkin bomb mission was conducted by a formation of three aircraft in the hope of convincing the Japanese military that small groups of B-29s did not justify a strong response. This strategy proved successful, and Japanese fighters only occasionally attempted to intercept the 509th Composite Group's aircraft.^[53]

[50]

7 component-tests between 23 July and 8 August involving rehearsal drops of four inert gun-type fission weapons and three Fat Man assemblies,^[54] and

Little Boy

a practice mission on 29 July to in which an inert Little Boy was unloaded and then reloaded to rehearse the contingency plan for using a back-up bomber in an emergency.^[54]^[55]

Iwo Jima

Depictions[edit]

The training and operations of the 509th Composite Group were dramatized in a Hollywood film, Above and Beyond (1952), with Robert Taylor cast in the role of Tibbets.^[86] The story was retold in a partly fictionalized made-for-television film Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (1980), with Patrick Duffy portraying Tibbets.^[87]

Established as 509th Composite Group on 9 December 1944

Source: Fact Sheet – 509 Operations Group (ACC)^[88]

17 December 1944;

Second Air Force

18 December 1944;

315th Bombardment Wing

c. June 1945;

313th Bombardment Wing

Second Air Force, 10 October 1945;

17 January 1946;

58th Bombardment Wing

31 March 1946

Fifteenth Air Force

Source: Fact Sheet – 509 Operations Group (ACC)^[88]

Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, 17 December 1944

North Field, Tinian, 29 May 1945

Roswell Army Airfield, New Mexico, 6 November 1945

Source: Maurer 1983, p. 372

Honors[edit]

Department of the Air Force Special Order GB-294, dated 2 September 1999, awarded the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award (with Valor) to the 509th Composite Group for outstanding achievement in combat for the period 1 July 1945 to 14 August 1945.^[89]

Campbell, Richard H. (2005). The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. 0-7864-2139-8. OCLC 58554961.

ISBN

(2012). Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man. Waukesha, Wisconsin: J. Coster-Mullen. OCLC 298514167.

Coster-Mullen, John

Craven, Wesley Frank; Cate, James Lea, eds. (1953). (PDF). The Army Air Forces in World War II. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-912799-03-X. OCLC 256469807. Retrieved 2 February 2012.

Vol. V The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki – June 1944 to August 1945

Krauss, Robert; Krauss, Amelia, eds. (2005). The 509th Remembered: A History of the 509th Composite Group as Told by the Veterans Themselves, 509th Anniversary Reunion, Wichita, Kansas October 7–10, 2004. Buchanan, Michigan: 509th Press. 978-0-923568-66-5. OCLC 59148135.

ISBN

Lawren, William (1988). . New York: Dodd Mead. ISBN 0-396-08761-2. OCLC 16868107.

The General and the Bomb: A Biography of General Leslie R. Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project

Maurer, Maurer (1983). . Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 978-0-912799-02-5. OCLC 9644436.

Air Force Combat Units of World War II

Moody, Walton S. (1996). (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program. OCLC 31900890. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 November 2016. Retrieved 31 August 2013.

Building a Strategic Air Force

Parish, James Robert (1990). The Great Combat Pictures: Twentieth-Century Warfare on the Screen. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-2315-0. OCLC 21377088.

ISBN

Polmar, Norman (2004). The Enola Gay: The B-29 That Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. 1-57488-859-5. OCLC 123124581.

ISBN

(1986). The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81378-5. OCLC 13793436.

Rhodes, Richard

(1998). Return of the Enola Gay. New Hope, Pennsylvania: Enola Gay Remembered Inc. ISBN 0-9703666-0-4. OCLC 40566286.

Tibbets, Paul W.

Wainstock, Dennis (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-275-95475-8. OCLC 33243854.

ISBN

Zuberi, Matin (August 2001). "Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". Strategic Analysis. 25 (5): 623–662. :10.1080/09700160108458986. ISSN 0970-0161. S2CID 154800868.

doi

509th Composite Group (1945). (PDF). Tinian: 509th CG (AFHRA archived). Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 January 2012. Retrieved 1 February 2012.

History of 509th Composite Group – 313th Bombardment Wing – Twentieth Air Force – Activation to 15 August 1945

Bowers, Peter M. (1999). Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Stillwater, Minnesota: Voyageur Press. 0-933424-79-5.

ISBN

Dvorak, Darrell F. (2012). (PDF). Airpower Historian. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2015.

"The Other Atomic Bomb Commander: Colonel Cliff Heflin and his "Special" 216th AAF Base Unit"

Mann, Robert A. (2004). The B-29 Superfortress: A Comprehensive Registry of the Planes and Their Missions. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. 0-7864-1787-0. OCLC 55962447.

ISBN

Marx, Joseph L. (1967). . New York: G.P. Putnam Sons. OCLC 913500.

Seven Hours to Zero

Ossip, Jerome J., ed. (1946). 509th Composite Group History – 509th Pictorial Album. Chicago, Illinois: Rogers Printing Company. 10065336.

OCLC

Rowe, James L. (1978). . Livermore, California: JA A RO Publishing. ISBN 0-9605562-0-6.

Project W-47

; Morgan-Witts, Max (1977). Enola Gay. New York: Stein & Day Publishing. ISBN 0-8128-2150-5.

Thomas, Gordon

Wheeler, Keith (1982). Bombers over Japan. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Time-Life Books. 0-8094-3429-6.

509th Composite Group