Bombing of Hiroshima

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 and flew the August 6 mission out of Tinian, a large island with several USAAF bases in the Mariana Islands chain. The plane was one of 15 B-29s with the final "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.

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.

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.

Mission personnel

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

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
• Manhattan Project 509CG Page

External links