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Enola Gay

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This article is about the bomber. For the Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) song, see Enola Gay (song).
"Enola Gay"
Colonel Paul Tibbets waving from Enola Gay's cockpit before taking off for the bombing of Hiroshima.
Type B-29 Superfortress
Manufacturer Boeing Aircraft Company
Glenn L. Martin Company, Omaha, Nebraska
Manufactured 18 May 1945
Serial 44-86292
Radio code Victor 12 or 82
Owners and operators United States Army Air Forces
In service 18 May 1945–24 July 1946
Preserved at National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

The Enola Gay is the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy", to be used in war, by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the attack on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, just before the end of World War II. The B-29 was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Paul Tibbets.[1]

The Enola Gay gained additional national attention in 1995 when the cockpit and nose section of the aircraft was exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington, D.C. The exhibit was changed due to a controversy over original historical script displayed with the aircraft. In 2003, the entire restored B-29 Enola Gay went on display at NASM's new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

World War II

The Enola Gay (B-29-45-MO, serial number 44-86292,[2] victor number 82) was assigned to the USAAF's 393d Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, 509th Composite Group.[3] The bomber was one of 15 B-29s with the "Silverplate" modifications necessary to deliver atomic weapons. Enola Gay was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed Martin) at its Bellevue, Nebraska, plant at what is now known as Offutt Air Force Base and was personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, on 9 May 1945 while still on the assembly line. This would be the B-29 that he would use to fly the atomic bomb mission.

The Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29s, Necessary Evil which was used as a camera plane to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb and carry scientific observers, and The Great Artiste which was the blast measurement instrumentation aircraft.

Enola Gay after strike at Hiroshima, entering hard-stand. It is in its 6th BG livery, victor number 82 visible on fuselage just forward of the tail fin

The aircraft was accepted by the USAAF on 18 May 1945, and assigned to Crew B-9 (Captain Robert A. Lewis, aircraft commander), who flew the bomber from Omaha to the 509th's base at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah on 14 June 1945. Thirteen days later, the aircraft left Wendover for Guam, where it received a bomb bay modification and flew to Tinian on 6 July. It was originally given the victor number "12," but on 1 August 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.

During July of that year, after the bomber flew eight training missions and two combat missions to drop pumpkin bombs on industrial targets at Kobe and Nagoya, Enola Gay was used on 31 July on a rehearsal flight for the actual mission. A "dummy" Little Boy assembly was dropped off Tinian. On 5 August 1945, during preparation for the first atomic mission, pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets who assumed command of the aircraft, named the B-29 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,[4] regularly assigned aircraft commander Robert Lewis was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became 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 had been described by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts in Enola Gay book 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)[5] (piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney) which dropped a second nuclear weapon, "Fat Man", on Nagasaki. The Nagasaki mission, by contrast, had been described as tactically botched, although the mission had met its objectives. The crew encountered a number of problems in execution, and Bockscar had very little fuel by the time it landed on Okinawa.[6] 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.[citation needed]

Subsequent history

Enola Gay in the Smithsonian storage facility at Suitland, 1987

On 6 November 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 8 November. On 29 April 1946, Enola Gay left Roswell as part of Operation Crossroads and flew to Kwajalein on 1 May. It was not chosen to make the test drop at Bikini Atoll and left Kwajalein on 1 July, 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 24 July 1946, the plane was flown to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, in preparation for storage. On 30 August 1946, the title to the aircraft was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution and was removed from the USAAF inventory. From 1946 to 1961, the Enola Gay was put into temporary storage at a number of locations:

Restoration of the bomber began on 5 December 1984, at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland.

Recent developments

Enola Gay in 2004 at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

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 the restored Enola Gay.[7]

Critics of the exhibit, especially those of the American Legion and the Air Force Association[8], charged that the exhibit focused too much attention on the Japanese casualties inflicted by the nuclear bomb, rather than on the motivations for the bombing or the discussion of the bomb's role in ending the World War II conflict with Japan. The exhibit brought to national attention many long-standing academic and political issues related to retrospective views of the bombings (see the debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). As a result, after various failed attempts to revise the exhibit in order to meet the satisfaction of competing interest groups, the exhibit was canceled on 30 January 1995, though the fuselage did go on display. On 18 May 1998, the fuselage was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.

Under the cockpit window of the Enola Gay, while in storage 1987.

The entire aircraft 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 aircraft provides only the same succinct technical data as is provided for other aircraft in the museum, without discussion of the 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, which was the throwing of a jar of red paint onto the Enola Gay's wing. A video analytics system was installed in 2005. Multiple surveillance cameras automatically generate an alarm when any person or object approaches the aircraft.

The propellers that were used on the bombing mission were later shipped to Texas A&M University. One of these propellers was trimmed to 12½ ft for use in the university's Oran W. Nicks Low Speed Wind Tunnel. The lightweight aluminum variable pitch propeller is powered by a 1,250 kVA electric motor providing a windspeed up to 200 mph.[9]

Mission personnel

Bombardier Thomas Ferebee with the Norden Bombsight on Tinian after the dropping of Little Boy

Enola Gay's crew on 6 August 1945 consisted of 12 men:

(Asterisks denote regular crewmen of the Enola Gay.)


Media

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Paul Tibbets Commanded Enola Gay, dropped first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, AcePilots.com. Retrieved: 19 December 2007.
  2. ^ "Enola Gay B-29". Columbus, Ohio: Mid Coast Marketing, 2001. Enola Gay Retrieved: 19 December 2007.
  3. ^ Knaack, Marcelle Size. Post-World War II bombers, 1945–1973. Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1988. ISBN 0-16-002260-6.
  4. ^ Thomas 1977.
  5. ^ Bockscar.
  6. ^ The Story of Nagasaki: The Missions.
  7. ^ Gallagher, Edward. "History on Trial: The Enola Gay Controversy". Lehigh University. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ "Enola Gay Archive". Air Force Association. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ "Enola Gay B29 Superfortress World War Two Bomber Aircraft Hiroshima". Solarnavigator.net. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  10. ^ Van Kirk is the sole surviving crew member, Apr.2010

Bibliography

  • Bowers, Peter M. Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Stillwater, Minnesota: Voyageur Press, 1999. ISBN 0-933424-79-5.
  • Campbell, Richard H. The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-7864-2139-8.
  • Haggerty, Forrest. 43 Seconds to Hiroshima: The First Atomic Mission. An Autobiography of Richard H. Nelson, "Enola Gay" Radioman. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2005. ISBN 1-42084-316-8.
  • Harwit, Martin. An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay. New York: Copernicus, 1996. ISBN 0-38794-797-3.
  • Hess, William N. Great American Bombers of WW II. St. Paul, Minnesota: Motorbooks International, 1999. ISBN 0-76030-650-8.
  • Krauss, Robert and Amelia. The 509th Remembered: A History of the 509th Composite Group as Told by the Veterans Themselves, 509th Anniversary Reunion, Wichita, Kansas October 7–10, 2004. 509th Press, 2005. ISBN 0-92356-866-2.
  • LeMay Curtis and Bill Yenne. Super Fortress. London: Berkley Books, 1988. ISBN 0-425-11880-0.
  • Mann, Robert A. The B-29 Superfortress: A Comprehensive Registry of the Planes and Their Missions. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2004. ISBN 0-7864-1787-0.
  • Marx, Joseph L. Seven Hours to Zero. New York: G.P. Putnam Son's, 1967.
  • Newman, Robert P. Enola Gay and the Court of History. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-82047-457-6.
  • O'Reilly, Charles T. and William A. Rooney. Enola Gay and the Smithsonian Institution. New York: McFarland & Company, 2005. ISBN 0-78642-008-1.
  • Pace, Steve. Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, United Kingdom: Crowood Press, 2003. ISBN 1-86126-581-6.
  • Polmar, Norman. The Enola Gay: The B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey's, 2004. ISBN 1-57488-859-5.
  • Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Simon & Schuster, 1986. ISBN 0-684-81378-5.
  • Thomas, Gordon and Max Morgan Witts. Enola Gay. New York: Stein & Day Publishing, 1977. ISBN 0-81282-150-5.
    • republished 1995 by Dalton Watson as Enola Gay: Mission to Hiroshima. ISBN 1-85443-127-7.
    • republished 2006 by Konecky & Konecky as Enola Gay: The Bombing of Hiroshima. ISBN 15685-2597-4.
  • Thomas, Gordon and Max Morgan Witts. Ruin from the Air: The Enola Gay's Atomic Mission to Hiroshima. London: Hamilton, 1977 (republished in 1990 by Scarborough House, ISBN 0-81288-509-0).
  • Tibbets, Paul W. Flight of the Enola Gay. Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Buckeye Aviation Book Company, 1989. ISBN 0-94239-711-8.
  • Wheeler, Keith. Bombers over Japan. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1982. ISBN 0-8094-3429-6.
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