BOSTON, July 18: The pilot of the US bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan in the last days of World War II died in a Boston hospital on Friday.

Charles W. Sweeney, who later rose to the rank of brigadier general in the US Air Force, died of natural causes at Massachusetts General Hospital, his son, Joseph, said on Sunday. He was 84.

Sweeney was 25 when he and the crew of a B-29 bomber known as Bock's Car circled over Nagasaki several times on Aug 9, 1945, before a break in the clouds allowed them to release their 10,000 pound nuclear weapon, nicknamed "Fat Man." -Reuters

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