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Ī visitor looks at one of the photos on display at the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. In his memoirs, Tibbets described what he saw as he walked away from the site: “The giant purple mushroom had already risen to a height of 45,000 feet, 3 miles above our own altitude, and was still boiling upward as something terribly alive.”. While there was always controversy over the number of victims, a 1946 report estimated that there were between 60 and 70 thousand deaths. Forty-three seconds later, the bomb exploded in a nuclear hell which left tens of thousands of scorched dead and thousands of wounded and turned the city, which at that time had about 250,000 inhabitants, into a scenery of terror. in the center of Hiroshima.Īt 8:15 local time, the bomb that had been dubbed “Little Boy” by its creators was dropped from an altitude of almost 1,000 meters. In a clear blue sky, then-Colonel Paul Tibbets of the United States Armed Forces was driving the four-engine plane that he himself had named in honor of his mother toward the bomb target, a major headquarters for the Japanese forces. Hours before dawn on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian, in the Marianas, with a secret cargo: a uranium atomic bomb hatched in the shadows of a nuclear development plan called the “Manhattan Project”. today at the Air and Space Museum outside of Washington, USA./AP
WHERE IS THE ENOLA GAY AIRPLANE HOUSED FULL
This huge complex with several hangars full of aircraft of all eras, ferries, rockets and missiles is farther from the museum that most tourists know, in the center of the American capital, because on the 50th anniversary, 25 years ago, There was so much controversy that they had to move him to a more remote place.
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It is on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum based in Chantilly, Virginia, just outside of Washington DC. With a wingspan of 45 meters and covered in polished aluminum that is almost a mirror, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay is for some a symbol of mass destructionBut for others it is the culmination of a heinous war that could have resulted in a million American deaths. It is a sign that it is not just an old artifact: it is the American plane that dropped the first atomic bomb in history exactly 75 years ago in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, caused some 70,000 deaths and started a nuclear race that continues today. What distinguishes it from the rest of the devices is a protective glass, perhaps armored, that prevents objects from being thrown at it from a gangway. Although it seeks to go unnoticed, it appears with its tinny shine, piled between aircraft of the Second World War, and you can almost touch the cabin with your hand, where the black letters with the name of the plane are intact: “ Enola Gay”Like the pilot’s mom. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.It seems like one more among many, but it is not. The Enola Gay (/ɪˈnoʊlə/) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. Martin Company (later part of Lockheed Martin ) at its Bellevue, Nebraska, plant, located at what is now known as Offutt Air Force Base.
WHERE IS THE ENOLA GAY AIRPLANE HOUSED SERIAL NUMBER
The Enola Gay (Model number B-29-45-MO, Serial number 44-86292, Victor number 82) was built by the Glenn L. Who were the crew members on the Enola Gay?Īmong others personally recruited by Tibbets for the 509th were the Enola Gay copilot, Lewis, Caron, tail gunner, Duzenbury, flight engineer, radar specialist Beser, and four members of the Bockscar flight crew: aircraft commander Chuck Sweeney, copilot Don Albury, bombardier Kermit Behan, and navigator James Van Pelt. The Enola Gay dropped the bomb “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. The BOCKSCAR dropped the bomb “FAT MAN” on Nagasaki. What was the name of the plane that dropped Fat Man? The Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay is now on display at the Steven F. The aircraft was named after the mother of pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. What was the Enola Gay and what part did it play in the war?Įnola Gay, the B-29bomber that was used by the United States on August 6, 1945, to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the first time the explosive device had been used on an enemy target. Van Kirk is the last surviving member of the crew. Tibbets retired from the Air Force in 1966 and died in 2007, at 92. Who were the crew members on the Enola Gay?.What was the name of the plane that dropped Fat Man?.What was the Enola Gay and what part did it play in the war?.