ENOLA GAY

'''Enola Gay''' is the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped "Little Boy", the first atomic bomb ever used in war, when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) attacked Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, just before the end of World War II. Because of its roles in the atomic bombings of Japan, its name has been synonymous with the bombings themselves. It was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot.
''Enola Gay'' gained additional national attention in 1994 when the front portion of the plane was exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington DC. The exhibit was changed due to a controversy over original historical script displayed with the plane. In 2003, the entire restored B-29 ''Enola Gay'' went on display at NASM's new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Contents

World War II history

Subsequent history

Recent developments

Mission personnel

Sources

External links

See also

World War II history

''Enola Gay'' (B-29-45-MO, serial number 44-86292, victor number 82) was assigned to the USAAF's 393rd Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group. The plane was one of 15 B-29s with the "Silverplate" modifications necessary to deliver nuclear bombs. ''Enola Gay'' was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company at its Omaha, Nebraska, plant at what is now Offutt Air Force Base and personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, on May 9, 1945 while still on the assembly line as the B-29 he would use to fly the atomic bomb mission.

The airplane was accepted by the USAAF on May 18, 1945, and assigned to Crew B-9 (Captain Robert Lewis, aircraft commander), who flew the plane from Omaha to the 509th's base at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, on June 14, 1945. Thirteen days later it left Wendover for Guam, where it received a bomb bay modification, and flew to Tinian on July 6. It was originally given the victor number 12 but on August 1 was given the circle R tail markings of the 6th Bomb Group as a security measure and had its victor changed to 82 to avoid misidentification with actual 6th BG aircraft.
After flying eight training missions and two combat missions during July to drop pumpkin bombs on industrial targets at Kobe and Nagoya, ''Enola Gay'' was used on July 31 on a rehearsal for the actual mission, with a dummy Little Boy assembly dropped off Tinian.
On August 5, 1945, during preparation for the first atomic mission, Tibbets had the plane named after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets (1893–1983, who had been named for the heroine of a novel). According to Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts (''Enola Gay'', Stein & Day Pub, 1977), regularly assigned aircraft commander Robert Lewis was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for the important mission, and furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of 6 August to see it painted with the now-famous nose art. Tibbets himself, interviewed on Tinian later that day by war correspondents, confessed that he was a bit embarrassed at having attached his mother's name to such a fateful mission.
The Hiroshima mission has been described as tactically flawless, and ''Enola Gay'' returned safely to its base on Tinian to great fanfare on the base. The first atomic bombing was followed three days later by another B-29 (''Bockscar'') [1] (piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney) which dropped a second nuclear weapon, "Fat Man", on Nagasaki. The Nagasaki mission, by contrast, has been described as tactically botched; although it met its objectives, it encountered a number of mistakes in execution and ''Bockscar'' had barely enough fuel to make an emergency landing on Okinawa. On that mission ''Enola Gay'', flown by Crew B-10 (Capt. George Marquardt, aircraft commander, see ''Necessary Evil'' for crew details), was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura.

Subsequent history

On November 6, 1945, Lewis flew the ''Enola Gay'' back to the United States, arriving at the 509th's new base at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico, on November 8. On April 29, 1946, ''Enola Gay'' left Roswell as part of Operation Crossroads and flew to Kwajalein on May 1. It was not chosen to make the test drop at Bikini Atoll and left Kwajalein on July 1, the date of the test, and reached Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Field, California, the next day.

The decision was made to preserve the aircraft and on July 24, 1946, it was flown to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, to prepare it for storage. On August 30 title to the aircraft was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution and it was removed from the USAAF inventory. It then went through temporary storage at a variety of locations:

★ September 1, 1946, Davis-Monthan AFB

★ July 3, 1949, Orchard Place Air Field, Park Ridge, Illinois, flown there by Gen. Tibbets for acceptance by the Smithsonian.

★ January 12, 1952, Pyote Air Force Base, Texas, moved after O'Hare International Airport's location was announced

★ December 2, 1953, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland

★ August 10, 1960, disassembly at Andrews begun by personnel of the Smithsonian -

★ July 21, 1961, components transported to Smithsonian storage facility at Suitland, Maryland.
Restoration was finally begun on December 5, 1984, at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland.

Recent developments

''Enola Gay'' became the center of a controversy at the Smithsonian Institution in 1994, when the museum put its fuselage on display as part of an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The exhibit, 'The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War' was drafted by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and arranged around a restored version of ''Enola Gay''. Critics, especially the American Legion and the Air Force Association, charged that the exhibit focused too much on the casualties wrought by the bomb rather than on the motivations for the bombing or discussion of its role in ending the war. The exhibit brought to national attention many long-standing academic and political issues related to retrospective views of the bombings (see ''Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki''), and in the end, after attempts to revise the exhibit to meet the satisfaction of competing interest groups, the exhibit was cancelled on January 30, 1995, though the fuselage did go on display. On May 18, 1998, the fuselage was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.

The entire plane has since been restored for static display and is currently a major permanent exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. As a result of the earlier controversy, the signage around the plane provides only the same succinct technical data as other aircraft in the museum, without discussion of controversial issues. The aircraft is shielded by various means to prevent a repetition of the vandalism which was attempted against it when it was first placed on display.
The four lightweight aluminum variable pitch propellers that were used on the bombing mission to save weight ended up at Texas A&M University. One of them, trimmed to 12.5 feet, provides the thrust for the Oran W. Nicks Low Speed Wind Tunnel. A 1250 kVA electric motor provides constant revolutions (900 RPM) and the propeller's pitch/yaw is changed to control the wind-speed (up to 200 mph) in the tunnel.

Mission personnel

''Enola Gay's crew on August 6 1945 consisted of twelve men:

★ Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. – aircraft commander

★ Captain Robert A. Lewis – co-pilot, ''Enola Gay's assigned aircraft commander
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★ Major Thomas Ferebee – bombardier

★ Captain Theodore Van Kirk – navigator

★ Lieutenant Jacob Beser – radar countermeasures (also the only man to fly on both nuclear bombing aircraft)

★ U.S. Navy Captain William Sterling "Deke" Parsons – weaponeer and bomb commander

★ Second Lieutenant Morris R. Jeppson – assistant weaponeer

★ Sergeant Joe S. Stiborik – radar
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★ Technical Sergeant George R. "Bob" Caron – tail gunner
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★ Sergeant Robert H. Shumard – assistant flight engineer
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★ Private First Class Richard M. Nelson – radio operator
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★ Technical Sergeant Wyatt E. Duzenberry – flight engineer
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(
★ Regularly crewed ''Enola Gay'')

Sources

★ Campbell, Richard H., ''The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs'' (2005), ISBN 0-7864-2139-8

★ 509th CG Aircraft Page, MPHPA

External links

★ Eyewitnesses to Hiroshima Time magazine, August 1 2005

★ How many died at Hiroshima?, analysis of the conflicting estimates

★ The Smithsonian's site on ''Enola Gay'' includes links to crew lists and other details

★ The reality of A-bomb Disasters

★ No Apologies for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

★ The Enola Gay Smithsonian Controversy

★ The Air Force Association's (a civilian organization) view of the Smithsonian controversy

★ Enola Gay Archive

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★ Annotated bibliography for the Enola Gay from the Alsos Digital Library

See also

★ Bockscar