Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/William Sterling Parsons

William Sterling Parsons

 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/ by Gog the Mild (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2023 (UTC)



William Sterling "Deak" Parsons was an American naval officer who was the weaponeer on the Enola Gay in the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. To avoid the possibility of a catastrophic nuclear explosion if the aircraft crashed and burned on takeoff, he climbed into the cramped and dark bomb bay and armed the bomb in flight. He was awarded the Silver Star for his part in the mission. Before he joined the Manhattan Project in June 1943, he was involved in the development the proximity fuze. As the Associate Director of the Project Y research laboratory at Los Alamos under J. Robert Oppenheimer, he was responsible for the ordnance aspects of the project, including the design and testing of the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons. He was also in charge of the development of the Little Boy gun-type fission weapon. After the war, he became the deputy commander of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and a rear admiral.
 * Most recent similar article(s): Thomas C. Kinkaid (3 April 2013)
 * Main editors:
 * Promoted: 19 December 2015
 * Reasons for nomination: The anniversary of the Trinity test gets an Indian actress instead of Robert Oppenheimer, so nominating this article for the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
 * Support as nominator. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  08:19, 2 July 2023 (UTC)