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Post by Horacewimp on Oct 16, 2019 7:14:48 GMT
I remember when the OMD song came out and saw the title at the time I thought they had jumped on the gay music bandwagon which was happening at the time, I looked into it more and was surprised. Helmut83 you might know but the song is about the bomber which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima named after the mother of the pilot “Enola Gay” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_GayHence the lyrics “ is mother proud of little boy today” little boy was the bombs name, and “8:15” the time the bomb exploded. OMD like writing songs about some odd things an oil refinery and telephone box to name but two. This version explains more
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Post by Helmut83 on Oct 16, 2019 19:09:21 GMT
Thanks for the explanation, Horacewimp. Being honest, both the song and what you told us about it were all new to me. OMD are virtually unknown in Argentina (more than ELO) so I had no idea this song even existed, and I was totally ignorant about the mother of the pilot who dropped the bomb too. All of which proves that besides being a place for fun, our forum is a beacon of knowledge in the otherwise obscure universe of Proboards.
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Post by coathanger on Oct 18, 2019 9:44:42 GMT
I remember when the OMD song came out and saw the title at the time I thought they had jumped on the gay music bandwagon which was happening at the time, I looked into it more and was surprised. Helmut83 you might know but the song is about the bomber which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima named after the mother of the pilot “Enola Gay” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_GayHence the lyrics “ is mother proud of little boy today” little boy was the bombs name, and “8:15” the time the bomb exploded. OMD like writing songs about some odd things an oil refinery and telephone box to name but two. This version explains more I first learned about The Manhatten Project and its aftermath at school in the 70s. Very interesting topic and one that continues to fascinate me. The original two bomb designs (both early fission types) were 'Thin Man' (a plutonium gun type weapon) and 'Fat Man' (a plutonium implosion device, similar to the primary stage of those weapons in service today). 'Thin Man' was found to be unstable in flight and it required a lot of modification to the B-29 carrier aircraft as well as being likely to fail at detonation so was cancelled. As the 'Fat Man' implosion design was more complex it was decided to test an example and this resulted the first detonation of a nuclear device 'Gadget' in the New Mexico desert in July 1945. 'Little Boy' was a simple device developed from the failed 'Thin Man' and didn't require testing being a gun type uranium weapon (in simple terms, one lump of uranium being fired into another down a tube). 'Little Boy' was dropped by bombardier Thomas Ferebee from the B-29 'Enola Gay' piloted by Paul Tibbets over primary target Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 and detonated with the force of 15kt at approximately 2,000 feet altitude. 'Fat Man' was dropped by bombardier Kermit Beahan from the B-29 'Bockscar' piloted by Charles Sweeney over their secondary target Nagasaki on 9th August 1945 and detonated with a force of 22kt at 1,650 feet altitude. The primary target for 'Bockscar' and its crew was Kokura but as this city was obscured by clouds, they diverted to Nagasaki. It's of note that the current largest free fall nuclear weapon in the US Air Force Inventory is the fission/fusion (thermonuclear) type B83 bomb with a maximum yield of 1.2mt, almost 100 times the magnitude of 'Little Boy' despite being only a quarter of the actual weight. Aircraft as small as the single seat Harrier are cleared to deliver the B83.
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Post by Grroosss on Oct 19, 2019 9:33:45 GMT
I remember when the OMD song came out and saw the title at the time I thought they had jumped on the gay music bandwagon which was happening at the time, I looked into it more and was surprised. Helmut83 you might know but the song is about the bomber which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima named after the mother of the pilot “Enola Gay” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_GayHence the lyrics “ is mother proud of little boy today” little boy was the bombs name, and “8:15” the time the bomb exploded. OMD like writing songs about some odd things an oil refinery and telephone box to name but two. This version explains more Well, I did a bit of research on the Enola Gay for a school project once, so any other potential meanings/context didn't even occur to me! About a year later, I actually ended up visiting the National Air and Space Museum; pretty neat to see it in person.
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Post by Timeblue on Oct 19, 2019 10:35:44 GMT
Great pic!
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