The original red arming plug and green safety plug that were built for Little Boy, the first of only two atomic bombs ever used in combat, have been sold at auction for $167 000. The purchaser was Clay Perkins, a retired physicist in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The sale went ahead despite a last-minute attempt by the US Air Force to block it for national security reasons.
The US B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945. The 9000-pound bomb had an explosive yield equal to 20 000 tons of TNT, and is believed to have killed more than 140 000 people. Morris Jeppson, the aircraft’s weapons test officer, removed the plugs moments before the bomb was released. The green safety plug was used to test the device on the aircraft, and the red arming plug was a spare identical to those used to...
