Laggin' Dragon

Laggin' Dragon
Type	Boeing B-29-50-MO Superfortress
Manufacturer	Glenn L. Martin Company
Serial	44-86347
Radio code	Victor 95
In service	June 15, 1945 - July 1960
Fate	Converted to TB-29 in 1946, scrapped July 1960

Laggin' Dragon was the name of a

atomic bomb in World War II

.

Airplane history

Laggin' Dragon was the last of the fifteen

393d Bomb Squadron

, Crew A-2 (Capt. Edward M. Costello, Aircraft Commander) flew it to Wendover in early July and briefly used in training and practice bombing missions.

On July 27, 1945, Costello and his crew flew the airplane from Wendover to

C-54 Skymaster

transports) in its bomb bay for conveyance to Tinian.

The three bombers flew to

life raft compartment opened and ejected the raft, which wrapped around the empennage

and impeded the B-29's elevators. The aircraft struggled to stay aloft but the pilots managed to return safely to Mather. After removing and replacing some major tail assemblies, Laggin' Dragon and its cargo continued to Hawaii, finally reaching Tinian on August 2.

It was assigned the

square P tail identifier of the 39th Bomb Group as a security measure and given Victor (unit-assigned identification) number 95 to avoid misidentification with actual 39th BG aircraft. The airplane was named while still at Wendover but the nose art was not applied until after the atomic missions. It arrived too late to participate in other combat operations and participated in two practice flights subsequent to the atomic attacks. On August 9, 1945, as part of the second atomic bomb mission, it was flown by another crew as the weather reconnaissance aircraft for the secondary target of Nagasaki

.

Laggin' Dragon returned to the United States in November 1945, based with the 509th CG at

Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, and the Oklahoma City Air Materiel Area at Tinker Air Force Base

.

It was subsequently assigned to: