Sweeney had used Bockscar for more than ten training and practice missions even though he and his usual crew had piloted another aircraft named The Great Artiste. Yet it wasn’t Bock who piloted the aircraft he had named on August 9, 1945. In the case of Bockscar -not to be confused with the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar -the moniker was a play on Captain Frederick Bock's last name, who had previously participated in air raids on Japan that were launched from parts of China controlled by the Allies. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay, had named his aircraft for his mother “Enola Gay Tibbets” (1893–1983) who herself was named after the heroine of the novel Enola or, Her Fatal Mistake. What is also notable about the two aircraft is that their respective pilots who regularly flew the aircraft named the planes. 50 caliber machine guns and one twenty-millimeter cannon in the tail, these modified aircraft had retailed the tail guns and even had their armor removed to save weight to be able to carry the extremely dangerous atomic bombs at extreme flight distances. 50 caliber machine guns in remote-controlled turrets along with two additional. Bockscar was actually one of fifteen specially modified “Silverplate” B-29s that were assigned to the 509th Composite Group.
