Atomic Bomb Pits

Two concrete loading pits near the North Field runways mark where the atomic bombs were prepared and loaded into their aircraft. The pits were dug below ground level so the bombs could be lowered into the aircraft holds without the need for ramps — a practical engineering solution to an extraordinary problem. They are preserved largely as they were in August 1945, with interpretive signs explaining the sequence of events.

The pits are modest in appearance, but the weight of what happened here is hard to shake. They sit quietly in a clearing, unfenced and unhurried, and most visitors spend some time in silence.

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Little Boy, the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, was loaded into the Enola Gay from Pit 1. Three days later, Fat Man — a more powerful plutonium device — was loaded from Pit 2 into the Bockscar, bound for Nagasaki. Both pits are designated a National Historic Landmark, among the most consequential small plots of earth in the twentieth century.