3. Saved by the Weather
Big Stink, the B-29 with which Bockscar was scheduled to rendezvous, was nowhere to be seen when the bomber with the atomic bomb reached Kokura. So Bockscar circled around, waiting for the film plane to show up. After 40 minutes of flying around, Major Sweeney gave up on Big Stink, and proceeded to Kokura. By then, however, clouds, plus smoke from a conventional bombing raid on a nearby city, had combined to obscure Kokura.
For the next 50 minutes, Bockscar crisscrossed the skies above Kokura, hoping for enough of a break in the cloud and smoke to drop its bomb. Below, the Kokurans went about their daily lives, oblivious to the death circling above. After three failed bombing runs, Sweeney finally gave up and flew at a new heading for his designated alternate target in case he was unable to bomb Kokura: Nagasaki. One city’s salvation proved to be another city’s doom.