Read about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
Long before the newly named "Enola Gay" lifted off from Tinian Island, her fate had been written in a top-secret military project code named "The Manhattan Engineer District" or what is commonly known as "The Manhattan Project."
The Enola Gay's payload that morning was the culmination of thousands of man-hours by scientists, researchers, military personnel and civilians during the during the time between Albert Einstein writing a letter to President Roosevelt about the possibility of the Germans successfully creating an atomic bomb to the test detonation of "Gadget" at the Trinity Test Site near Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Although some interest and consideration had been given to the development of an American atomic bomb, nothing had really crystallized until Colonel Richard Groves took over the project in September 1942. Immediately after his leadership went into effect, Col. Groves set into motion the purchase of 1250 tons of uranium ore that was stored on Staten Island and then purchased the 52,000 acres of land in Tennessee that would become the Oak Ridge installation. Later he would acquire the Hanford Engineer Works and 780 square miles of land in Washington State to begin construction of the plutonium reactors and separation plants. His next big step would be to ask Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to head the newly planned laboratory for the bomb's design and construction at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Each of these locations would work around the clock and it wasn't until August 1944 that Col. Groves was able to give his first estimate as to the bomb's availability. The Air Force then went into action and began modifying seventeen B-29 bombers for delivery. It was at this time the future pilot of the Enola Gay; Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets came into the picture.
Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets was placed in charge of organizing the 509th Composite Group at Wendover Field, Utah. Ultimately the 509th was the group that delivered the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in combat.
Lt. Col. Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born on February 23, 1915 in Quincy, Illinois. They eventually moved to Florida where Tibbits rode in his first airplane at the age of twelve. He attended the Western Military Academy as well as the Universities of Florida and Cincinnati with the idea of a career in medicine. His love of flying won out over medicine and he enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps on February 25, 1937. It would be one short year before he received his pilot wings at Kelly Field, Texas and his commission of second Lieutenant.
As the Second World War raged on, Tibbets became Squadron Commander of the 340th bomb Squadron in February 1942. He eventually flew 25 B-17 missions as well as the first American Flying Fortress Raid in Europe.
He returned to the states in March 1943 to test Boeing's new B-29 Super Fortress. Logging over 400 hours in the plane while the "bugs" were worked out, Tibbets became pilot with the most flight hours in a B-29.
In September 1944 Col. Groves briefed Tibbets on the Manhattan Project and gave him the responsibility to organize and train a unit for the bomb's delivery. It was also his responsibility to figure out and supervise any modifications needed for the B-29 use in the project. The code name for these special B-29s was "Silverplate."
Tibbets first move was to requisition fifteen new B-29s and ordered they be stripped of turrets and all but the tail gunner's armor plating. He also had the bomb bay fixed so it would suspend from a single point a bomb weighing ten thousand pounds. His goal was to make an airplane that would be able to fly higher than the effective range of an anti-aircraft gun.
On December 17, 1944 he received formal orders that would activate the 509th Composite Group that consisted of seven subordinate units. On June 14, 1945 Tibbets handpicked a B-29, serial number 44-86292 from Martin Aircraft in Omaha, Nebraska. By this time Col. Tibbets' small group had grown to 1,500 enlisted men and 200 officers. As time for the testing of Gadget drew near, the 509th began moving to Tinian Island in the Marianas chain.
July 16, 1945 at 5:29 a.m. saw the successful detonation of the bomb Gadget at the Trinity Test Site with an explosive yield of 20-22 kilotons. While the testing was going on, the parts for the Little Boy bomb was on their way from San Francisco to Tinian aboard the ill-fated USS Indianapolis.
President Truman gave his approval to use Little Boy against the Japanese in the afternoon of August 5, 1945. It was late in the evening of this day Col. Tibbets decided to name his plane Enola Gay after his mother.
At 2:30 a.m. on August 6, 1945 the Enola Gay left Tinian Islands North Field for Special Bombing Mission number 13 with Little Boy in its bomb bay. The Enola Gay's crew of course included Tibbets as the pilot as well as Co-pilot Capt. Bob Lewis, Bombardier Ferebee, Navigator Van Kirk and 1st Lt. Jacob Beser, radar countermeasures officer.
The crew's target was the "T" shaped Aioi Bridge that was located in the heart of Hiroshima. At 9:15:15 Hiroshima time Little Boy was dropped and forty three seconds later exploded at which time the future of warfare was forever changed.
When asked about the explosion, Capt. Lewis would later be quoted as saying "I don't believe anyone ever expected to look at a sight quite like that. Where we had seen a clear city two minutes before, we could now no longer see the city."
At 2:58p.m. the Enola Gay landed back at Tinian. Tibbets was decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross while the other members of his crew received Air Medals. While her most historic mission was over, the career of the Enola Gay wasn't.
On August 9, 1945 the Enola Gay flew reconnaissance to Kokura as a support plane for the Special Bombing Mission # 16 that dropped Fat Man onto the city of Nagasaki. After the participating in several atomic bomb tests, the plane was sent to Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, Arizona (4105th Base Unit) for storage on July 24, 1946.
On July 3, 19 49 she was retrieved from storage by Tibbets and flown to Park Ridge, Illinois, (now O`Hare airport) to be restored and displayed by Smithsonian Institution. It wasn't until December 5, 1984 that the restoration actually got under way in Suitland, Maryland.
The forward section of the fuselage as well as other pieces of the Enola Gay were put on display at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately the Smithsonian gave in to the protests of certain people concerning the exhibit and closed it on May 18, 1998 at which time the Enola Gay was returned in pieces to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility. The entire plane is now complete and on display at the Smithsonian Annex located near Dulles Airport.
