Talk:Bockscar

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Bockscar article.
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If the actual name is "Bockscar", shouldn't that be the name of the article? - Molinari 19:05, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Google thinks so:

  • Bock's Car (795)
  • Bocks Car (259)
  • Bockscar (819)

That, combined with the fact that the US Air Force Museum Archives calls it "Bockscar" is good enough for me: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b3-35.htm -- Bill 19:12, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] "BOCK'S CAR"?

As painted on the plane, the name is "BOCKS CAR"; there's a small but clear space between the S and C. In my opinion, since "Bockscar" and "Bocks Car" don't parse, and "[Frederick] Bock's Car" does--and probably was a pun on Boxcar--we should call it that. My guess is that the apostrophe went the way of Neil Armstrong's "a" in "That's one small step for [a] man,..."
—wwoods 03:02, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In his book Mission : Hiroshima (originally published as The Tibbets Story) (Stein & Day, 1979, ISBN 0-8128-8169-9) Colonel Paul W. Tibbets refers to the aircraft as "Bock's Car" throughout. Is this not definitive? Dawkeye 23:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I would say that the spelling used by the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where they have professional curators and try to be as accurate as possible, would be the best source. They use "Bockscar" [1]. --rogerd 17:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
That it was a pun on "boxcar" (one word) is indisputable--the painted cartoon is of a boxcar. The "perceived" gap between the S and the C is in the eye of the beholder and therefore, in the absence of any documentation showing that the namer or the artist intended it to be such is ORIGINAL RESEARCH and therefore forbidden. The point about Tibbets is irrelevant--he wasn't the namer nor the artist, nor do we know under what circumstances the ghost writer/editor of his book chose that spelling ("Bockscar" looks odd--very possibly an editor chose the spelling). The point about the NMUSAF exhibit is well-taken. An impeccably-credible source has defined the name: Bockscar. We don't, in the words of the first editor above, need to "guess".--Buckboard 05:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
It is completely silly and foolish to say that Col/Gen. Tibbets's opinion is "irrelevant". (Are you in the business of handing out insults?) Col. Tibbets was the commanding officer of the USAAF 509th Composite Group, and as such, he was responsible for everything in that B-29 Group, including the names of all the airplanes and all the nose art. It is insulting to say that he did not KNOW the name of such an important airplane as "Bock's Car".
To say so is like saying that a commanding Admiral did not know the names of every ship in his Task Force, or in his squadron of ships (in the example of the commander of a destroyer or submarine squadron, or a cruiser division). It is just completely unbelievable.

[edit] Bocks Car

Well, I'll give a reason for the third possible choice: I think the spelling on the aircraft should be definitive, grammatical or not, most commonly used or not. So I think the article should be titled Bocks Car, although the space between S and C is pretty thin, more the absence of an overlap than an actual space.

In any case, I've put a link to the above image on the article page and edited it to leave it to the reader to decide whether there's a space in there. 207.176.159.90 00:03, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, Bocks Car makes most sense. The Enola Gay was also all caps, but it is written in this format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragesoss (talk • contribs)
Wow, look at the change from the older photo to the newer. Clearly, someone has done a poor job restoring here. There is a clear absence of an overlap in the older photo, and not in the newer one. Still, even the oldest version must have been made after the mission. Does anyone know who the artist was? Greswik 13:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Great Artiste

According to The Bomb: A Life, Bocks Car (or whatever the format) was the original name, after it's normal pilot, and it was renamed The Great Artiste by Sweeney but the name didn't stick. The line about manning the Great Artiste is confusing and seems to suggest that the plane flown by Bock on the Nagasaki mission was the The Great Artiste.--ragesoss 00:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't see any confusion. The intro quite clearly says "On the day of the attack Bockscar was manned by the crew of The Great Artiste and was commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney of Massachusetts." Also, it is probably more accurate to say Sweeney attempted to rename the aircraft, not that he actually did so. Does the book say exactly when the BOCKSCAR name was painted on the aircraft? Moriori 02:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
The plane that flew the instrumentation missions for both Hiroshima and Nagasaki was already named the Great Artiste. The Great Artiste was originally scheduled to drop the second bomb, but when it was realised that there was not enough time to move the instrumentation from the Great Artiste to Bocks Car, the crews were swapped. The document at [2], which is an External link from the article, explains most of this. The initial press releases said that the second bomb had been dropped from the Great Artiste because that had been the plan.[3] Note that the press release states the mission was flown in no. 77, which was the BocksCar.[4] As for when the nose art was painted on Bocks Car, a photo taken right after the mission shows a clean nose; the nose art was added later. Unfortunately, I can't find the photo right now. -- Dalbury(Talk) 05:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
None of the aircraft except Enola Gay were "named" (i.e. painted on the nose) before the missions. One (Luke the Spook) was not named until the next year, and one (Jabit III) very possibly never carried a name. All nose art was unofficial and there are no documents showing when any were applied, except that Tibbets has confirmed that the plane was lettered the day before the mission. The reason the Nagasaki press release gives a victor number is that it was the only ID painted on the a/c at the time. The debate over "all caps" etc is a little overblown--nose art lettering came out in the style of the artist, without regard to caps etc. Enola Gay was lettered in BLOCK lettering. Many nicknames were painted by their artists using quotation marks, so some here would have them shown in an article as ""Name"". Also, the reason victor 77 was chosen to drop the Kokura-Nagasaki bomb was that it had been used by Sweeney and Albury's crew to conduct all three Fat Man test drops on August 1, 5, and 8. It was ready to go and they were comfortable flying it. The switchover of instrumentation could have been done, but why bother? Of the 393rd B-29s, only one (Some Punkins) was flown exclusively by its assigned crew, and one (Big Stink) was flown on missions by nine of the fifteen 393rd crews.--Buckboard 05:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)