| Enola Gay | |
|---|---|
| Colonel Paul Tibbets waving from Enola Gay's cockpit before taking off for the bombing of Hiroshima[N 1]) | |
| Type | Boeing B-29 Superfortress |
| Manufacturer | Boeing Aircraft Company Glenn L. Martin Company, Omaha, Nebraska |
| Manufactured | May 18, 1945 |
| Serial | 44-86292 |
| Radio code | Victor 12 or 82 |
| Owners and operators | United States Army Air Forces |
| In service | May 18, 1945 – July 24, 1946 |
| Preserved at | National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center |
Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the pilot, then-Colonel (later Brigadier General) Paul Tibbets.[2] On August 6, 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused extensive destruction.
The Enola Gay gained additional attention in 1995 when the cockpit and nose section of the aircraft were exhibited during the bombing's 50th anniversary 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. Since 2003 the entire restored B-29 has been on display at NASM's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
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The Enola Gay (B-29-45-MO, AAF Serial Number 44-86292, victor number 82) 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 one of fifteen B-29s with the "Silverplate" modifications necessary to deliver atomic weapons, which included an extensively modified bomb bay with pneumatic doors, special propellors, modified engines[3] and the deletion of protective armor and gun turrets. Enola Gay was personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, on May 9, 1945, while still on the assembly line.[4]
The aircraft was accepted by the USAAF on May 18, 1945 and assigned to the 393d Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, 509th Composite Group.[5] Crew B-9 (Captain Robert A. Lewis, aircraft commander) took delivery of the bomber and flew it from Omaha to the 509th's base at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah on June 14, 1945. Thirteen days later, the aircraft left Wendover for Guam, where it received a bomb bay modification and flew to Tinian on July 6th. It was originally given the victor number "12," but on August 1st 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 July 31st on a rehearsal flight for the actual mission. The partially-assembled Little Boy combat weapon L-11 was contained inside a 41” x 47” x 138” wood crate weighing 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) that was secured to the deck of the USS Indianapolis. Unlike the six U-235 target discs, which were later flown to Tinian on three separate planes arriving July 28 and 29, the assembled projectile with the nine U-235 rings installed was shipped in a single lead-lined steel container weighing 300 pounds (140 kg) that was securely locked to brackets welded to the deck of Captain Charles McVay’s quarters. ([N 2]) Both the L-11 and projectile were dropped off at Tinian on July 26, 1945.[7]
On August 5, 1945, during preparation for the first atomic mission, pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets who assumed command of the aircraft, named the B-29 aircraft after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets (1893–1983), who had been named for the heroine of a novel ([N 3]). According to Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts,[9] 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 August 6th to see it painted with the now famous nose art.[10] 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.[11]
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 Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29s, Necessary Evil which was used to carry scientific observers, and as a camera plane to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb and The Great Artiste instrumented for blast measurement.[12]
The first atomic bombing was followed three days later by another B-29 (Bockscar)[13] (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.[14] 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.
Enola Gay's crew on August 6, 1945 consisted of 12 men.[15] Only three, Tibbetts, Ferebee, and Parsons, knew the purpose of the mission.[16]
(Asterisks denote regular crewmen of the Enola Gay.)
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 8 November. On April 29, 1946, Enola Gay left Roswell as part of Operation Crossroads and flew to Kwajalein on May 1st. It was not chosen to make the test drop at Bikini Atoll and left Kwajalein on July 1st, the date of the test, and reached Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Field, California, the next day.
The decision was made to preserve the Enola Gay, and on July 24, 1946, the aircraft was flown to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, in preparation for storage. On August 30, 1946, the title to the aircraft was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution and the Enola Gay 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 December 5, 1984, at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland.
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 wind speed up to 200 mph.[18]
Enola Gay became the center of a controversy at the Smithsonian Institution, when the museum planned to put its fuselage on public display as part of an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[19] 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 staff, and arranged around the restored Enola Gay.[20][21]
Critics of the planned exhibit, especially those of the American Legion and the Air Force Association, 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.[22] The exhibit brought to national attention many long-standing academic and political issues related to retrospective views of the bombings. 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 January 30, 1995.[23] Martin O. Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, was compelled to resign over the controversy.[24][25]
The forward fuselage did go on display on June 28, 1995. On July, 2nd three people were arrested for throwing ash and human blood on the aircraft's fuselage, following an earlier incident in which a protester had thrown red paint over the gallery's carpeting.[26]
On May 18, 1998, the fuselage was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.
Restoration work began in 1984, and would eventually require 300,000 staff hours. While the fuselage was on display, from 1995 to 1998, work continued on the remaining unrestored components. The aircraft was shipped in pieces to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia from March–June 2003, with the fuselage and wings reunited for the first time since 1960 on April 10, 2003[3] and assembly completed on August 18, 2003. The aircraft is currently at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, since the museum annex opened on December 15, 2003.[27]
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 that was attempted when it was first placed on display. A video analytics system was installed in 2005 and multiple surveillance cameras automatically generate an alarm when any person or object approaches the aircraft.
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