Full House (aircraft)

This article relates to the B-29 named Full House. For the television series, see Full House.

Full House was the name of a B-29 Superfortress (B-29-36-MO 44-27298, victor number 83) participating in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group, it was used as a weather reconnaissance plane and flew to the city of Nagasaki, designated a "tertiary target", before the final bombing to determine if conditions were favorable for an attack. The aircraft also flew as a spare aircraft during the mission to bomb Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, but landed at Iwo Jima when the B-29 Bockscar was able to complete the mission.

Airplane history

One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th on Tinian, Full House was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Omaha, Nebraska, as a Block 35 aircraft. It was one of 10 modified as a Silverplate and re-designated "Block 36". Delivered on March 20, 1945, to the USAAF, it was assigned to Crew A-1 (Maj. Ralph R. Taylor, aircraft commander) and flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah. It left Wendover on June 11, 1945 for Tinian and arrived June 17.

It was originally assigned the victor number 13 but on August 1 was given the square P tail markings of the 39th Bomb Group as a security measure and had its victor changed to 83 to avoid misidentification with actual 39th BG aircraft. It was named Full House and its nose art applied after the atomic bomb...
Read More