From the diary of Fred Olivi, who was a member of Bockscar's crew: 'It was bright bluish color. It took about 45 or 50 seconds to get up to our altitude and then continued on up. ...Somebody hollered in the back: 'The mushroom cloud is coming toward us.' This is where Sweeney took the aircraft and dove it down to the right, full throttle, and I remember looking at the damn thing on our left and I couldn't tell for a while whether it was gaining on us or we were gaining on it.' They were still 457 miles from the nearest landing strip, on Okinawa, and sent out a May Day. The plane did make it, gliding much of the way, although one engine died and the plane bounced 25 feet in the air before settling down. It barely missed hitting a row of parked planes that were fully loaded with incendiary bombs and fueled up. Bockscar had made it. Just barely.