Kokura was a city in Japan, founded some time in the fifteenth century as part of the Kitakyushu district. If you imagine a map of Japan as being like Sean Connery, facing you, tilting his whole body 45 degrees to his left - try, please - Kokura was situated on the right side of his right foot. Or rather, it was situated on the right side of Japan's right foot. In 1963 it was amalgamated with other cities to form Kitakyushu, a city in its own right, and thus Kokura no longer exists, although addresses still include it as a district of Kitakyushu.

Kokura has one claim to fame - it's the luckiest city that ever there was. In September 1945 it was chosen as the target for the second atomic bomb, 'Fat Man', on account of the large arsenal within the city, a factory which produced all kinds of munitions including chemical weapons. The factory itself was one target; the workers who worked in the factory were another target.

On the morning of the 9th of August 'Bockscar', the B-29 carrying the bomb, arrived over the city and made a number of passes in an attempt to find the aiming point, a bridge outside the factory. After that proved fruitless due to cloud cover and smoke from earlier raids, the bomber was diverted to its second target, Nagasaki, instead.

A lone B-29 departed the morning sky as the people went about their business; repairing damage from a bombing raid the previous night.

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