ORLANDO, Fla. — Charles Donald Albury, co-pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, died May 23 of congestive heart failure. He was 88.
Albury helped fly the B-29 Bockscar that dropped the weapon Aug. 9, 1945, and witnessed the deployment of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima three days earlier as a pilot for a support plane.
His plane dropped instruments to measure the magnitude of the blast and radioactivity levels for the Hiroshima mission led by Col. Paul Tibbets Jr.
“When Tibbets dropped the bomb, we dropped our instruments and made our left turn,” Albury told Time magazine four years ago.
“Then, this bright light hit us, and the top of that mushroom cloud was the most terrifying but also the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Every color in the rainbow seemed to be coming out of it.”
Three days later, Albury co-piloted the mission over Nagasaki. The bomb instantly killed about 40,000 people. Another 35,000 died from injuries and radiation sickness.
