Frederick Ashworth

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Frederick Lincoln "Dick" Ashworth (24 January 1912 – 3 December 2005) was a United States Navy officer who served as the weaponeer on the B-29 Bockscar that dropped a Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945 during World War II. A 1933 graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, Ashworth commanded Torpedo Squadron Eleven (VT-11), a Grumman TBF Avenger unit based on Guadalcanal that flew patrol, search, spotting, strike, and night mine-laying missions in support of the New Georgia Campaign in the Solomon Islands. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism while carrying out these missions. He then participated in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign as aviation officer on the staff of Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner's V Amphibious Force. Rotated back to the United States in June 1944, Ashworth became senior naval aviator at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia. In November 1944 he was assigned to the Manhattan Project, and supervised the testing of atomic bomb components at Wendover. In February 1945, he travelled to Guam, where he met Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, and selected Tinian as a base of operations for the 509th Composite Group. After the war he selected Bikini Atoll as the site for Operation Crossroads. Remaining in the navy after the war, Ashworth rose to the rank of vice admiral in May 1966. He was Commandant of Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in 1958, and served as commander of the United States Sixth Fleet from September 1966 to April 1967. He retired from the navy in 1968, and died in 2005.