広島に投下された最初の原子爆弾「リトルボーイ」から引き抜かれた緑色の安全プラグと赤い発射用接栓が約1074万円で販売された。
金属と木材でできている3インチのプラグは、B-29エノラゲイに搭乗し、安全プラグを抜いた本人であるモリス・ジェップソン氏によってお土産として保管されていた。
The green safety plug and red arming plug were pulled out of 'Little Boy', the 4.4-tonne weapon, before it was unleashed to such devastating effect on August 6, 1945.
The bombing killed over 140,000 people, bringing forward the end of World War Two with the Japanese surrender.
The three-inch plugs, which were made of metal and wood, were kept as a souvenir of the mission by Lieutenant Morris Jeppson, the weapons test officer on the B29 bomber 'Enola Gay'.
The safety plug prevented the bomb going off during transport and flight while the arming plug enabled the weapon to be detonated by radar once it was dropped over the target.
Lieutenant Jeppson later recounted: 'Before this time, bombs dropped from aircraft detonated by striking the ground.
'Atomic bombs with 30,000 times the explosive power had to be detonated in the air at heights proportional to the size of the explosion.
'Scientists recognised that an atomic explosion from a bomb dropped from low altitude would destroy the B-29 (Enola Gay).
'Therefore the plane should fly at a high altitude. As a result, the bomb designers faced several new problems.
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11:52, 05 Jan 2020 Daily Mail
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7853591/Pair-safety-plugs-removed-atomic-bomb-dropped-Hiroshima-sell-76-000.html
