In passing

Charles W. Sweeney, 84, WWII A-bomb pilot

Boston Charles W. Sweeney, a retired Air Force general who piloted the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki in the final days of World War II, died Thursday. He was 84.

Sweeney died at Massachusetts General Hospital, a hospital spokesperson said.

Sweeney was 25 when he piloted the B-29 bomber that attacked Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and six days before Japan surrendered.

About 70,000 people were killed in the explosion of the bomb, dubbed “Fat Man.” It was the first bomb Sweeney ever dropped on an enemy target.

Sweeney was an outspoken defender of the bombings, appearing on CNN and speaking at colleges and universities.

Sweeney also wrote a book, “War’s End: An Eyewitness Account of America’s Last Atomic Mission,” to counter what he considered “cockamamie theories” that the bombings were unnecessary.

Sweeney also played a role in the bombing at Hiroshima, where he flew an instrument plane that accompanied the Enola Gay during that attack.

His own B-29, the Bock’s Car, is not as well-known, although the bombing was harrowing for the crew. The flight had fuel problems from the start, and clouds and smoke were covering the mission’s primary target, the city of Kokura.

After making several dangerous passes over the city, Sweeney abandoned the primary target for Nagasaki. Only a break in the clouds allowed the bomb to be dropped, Sweeney said.

Bella Lewitzky, 88, dance, arts advocate

Pasadena, Calif. Dance legend Bella Lewitzky, a world renowned choreographer, master teacher and arts advocate who sued over a national obscenity pledge and won, died Friday. She was 88.

Lewitzky died apparently from complications of a stroke she suffered four days earlier, said her daughter, Nora Reynolds Daniel.

When the National Endowment for the Arts implemented a mandatory obscenity pledge, Lewitzky’s dance company filed a lawsuit and in January 1991, the pledge was declared unconstitutional.

Lewitzky’s modern dance career started in 1934 when she enrolled in a class offered by Los Angeles choreographer Lester Horton at the Norma Gould Studio where she remained until 1951.

She held teaching residencies across the country and abroad, including at the California Institute for the Arts, where she served as the first dean of dance.

She retired as a performer in 1978 when she was diagnosed with atherosclerosis, but remained active as a teacher, speaker and member of the NEA.

Frances Hansen, 85, crossword creator

New York Frances Hansen, a prolific crossword puzzle creator known for designing puzzles whose answers formed original poems, died Friday. She was 85.

Hansen died of complications of a stroke, said her niece, Betty Lee Solley.

Hansen’s puzzles were published in newspapers including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times and by such book publishers as Dell and Simon & Schuster.

Eighty-two of her puzzles were published by the New York Times, and the 83rd was scheduled to be published in the Christmas issue of the newspaper’s Sunday magazine, the newspaper said in its Thursday editions.

Hansen wrote every Christmas puzzle since 1995, and she was the newspaper’s fourth most published crossword puzzle creator, the Times said.

Hansen’s first attempt to write a puzzle was rejected by the Times; her second, based on the Lewis Carroll book “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There,” was accepted and published in December 1964, the newspaper said.