SAN FRANCISCO, California -- A U.S. court here Friday cleared the way for the sale of the final remnants of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, AFP reported.

U.S. district court judge Susan Illston turned down a U.S. government request to block the auction sale of two electrical plugs used to test and detonate "Little Boy," the first nuclear weapon ever used in war.

The government contended the two plugs -- a green one to test the bomb fusing mechanism and a spare red one that would actually set off the bomb -- were still classified as secret. The judge disagreed.

"I don't think you've made any showing, literally coming in here at the last moment," she told U.S. attorneys in court. "There's not a national security issue involved." Little Boy was dropped from the B-29 bomber Enola Gay over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people and perhaps bringing World War II to an early end.

Butterfield's auctioneers sold the plugs, the only known remains of that bomb, at auction on Tuesday to Clay Perkins, a private collector and retired missile scientist from Rancho Santa Fe, California, near San Diego.

The plugs were auctioned on behalf of Enola Gay flight crewmember Morris Jeppson, who now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Jeppson earned 150,000 dollars from the sale. The auction house took a $17,500 commission.