The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who chose plane while still on assembly line. On August 6, 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first plane to drop the atomic bomb. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted in the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused unprecedented damage. Enola Gay participates in a second atomic attack as a weather surveillance aircraft for Kokura's main target. Clouds and smoke floating produce secondary targets, Nagasaki, bombed instead.
After the war, Enola Gay returned to the United States, where he operated from the Roswell Army Airfield, New Mexico. In May 1946, the plane was flown to Kwajalein for Crossroads nuclear test operations in the Pacific, but was not chosen to test in Bikini Atoll. Later that year it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and spent many years parked in the weather-affected air base and souvenir hunter, before being dismantled and transported to the Smithsonian storage facility in Suitland, Maryland, in 1961.
In the 1980s, a group of veterans engaged in a call for the Smithsonian to put the plane on display, leading to a fierce debate about showing off the plane without proper historical context. The cockpit and nose section of the plane was on display at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in downtown Washington, D.C., for the 50th anniversary of the 1995 bomb, amid controversy. Since 2003, all the restored B-29s have been on display at NASM Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The last survivor of his crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died on July 28, 2014, at the age of 93.
Video Enola Gay
World War II
Initial history
The Enola Gay (model number B-29-45-MO, serial number 44-86292, number 82 of Victor 82) was made by Glenn L. Martin Company (Lockheed Martin section) in Bellevue, Nebraska, located in what is now known as Offutt Air Force Base. Bomber is one of 15 early instances of B-29 built with the "Silverplate" specification - 65 of these were finally completed during and after World War II - giving them the primary ability to function as nuclear weapons delivery planes. These modifications include a widely modified bomb bay with pneumatic doors and British bombing and disposal systems, reversible field propellers that provide more braking power on the landing, improved engine with better fuel injection and cooling, and removal of protective armor and rifle towers.
Enola Gay was personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., commander of the 509 Composite Group, on May 9, 1945, while still on the assembly line. The aircraft was accepted by the United States Air Force (USAAF) Air Force on May 18, 1945 and assigned to 393d Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, 509th Composite Group. Crew B-9, commanded by Captain Robert A. Lewis, took bomber shipments and flew them from Omaha to base 509 at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, on June 14, 1945.
Thirteen days later, the plane left Wendover to Guam, where it received a bomb-bay modification, and flew to North Field, Tinian, on July 6th. Initially it was awarded Victor (identification of the squadron-assigned) number 12, but on August 1st, was marked circle R tail of Group Bombardemen 6 as a security measure and had the Victor number changed to 82 to avoid misidentification with 6 actual Bombardment Group aircraft. During July, the bomber made eight training or flight training, and flew two missions, on 24 and 26 July, to drop a pumpkin bomb on industry targets in Kobe and Nagoya. Enola Gay was used on July 31 on training flights for actual missions.
Little Boy's partially assembled L-11 weapon fission weapons, weighing 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg), are in 41 inches (100 cm) -47 inches (120 cm) ÃÆ'â € "138 inch (350 Â ° cm) crate timber secured to the USSÃ deck, Indianapolis . Unlike six uranium-235 target disks, which are then flown to Tinian on three separate planes arriving 28 and 29 July, the projectiles assembled with nine uranium-235 rings are fitted to a 300-kilogram (140 kg) tin-coated steel container locked to brackets welded to deck where Captain Charles B. McVay III. Both the L-11 and the projectiles were revealed at Tinian on July 26, 1945.
Hiroshima Mission
On August 5, 1945, during preparations for the first atomic mission, Tibbets took command of the plane and named it after his mother Enola Gay Tibbets, who, in turn, was named for the main character of the novel. When it comes to choosing a name for the plane, Tibbets then remembers that:
... My mind changed at this point to my redheaded mother, whose calm confidence has been a source of strength for me since childhood, and especially during the soul-searching period when I decided to leave her medical career to become a military pilot. By the time Father thought I had lost a marble, he had taken my side and said, "I know you'll be fine, son."
The name was painted on the airplane on 5 August by Allan L. Karl, an enlisted airplane in 509. The commander of the permanently assigned aircraft, Robert Lewis was not happy to be moved by Tibbets for this important mission, and became very angry when he arrived on the plane early in the morning the day of August 6 to see him painted with the now famous nose art.
Hiroshima is the primary target of the first nuclear bombing mission on August 6, with Kokura and Nagasaki being an alternative target. Enola Gay , piloted by Tibbets, departs from North Field, in Northern Mariana Islands, about six hours of flight time from Japan, accompanied by two other B-29s, The Great Artiste , carrying instrumentation, and then an anonymous plane called Necessary Evil , commanded by Captain George Marquardt, to take a photo. The Manhattan Project Director, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., wanted the show recorded for posterity, so it took off by the spotlights. When he wanted to take a taxi, Tibbets leaned against the window to direct the observers out of the way. On request, he gives a friendly wave for the camera.
After leaving Tinian, the aircraft flew separately to Iwo Jima, where they met at 2,440 meters (8,010 ft) and set the track for Japan. The aircraft arrives above the target in clear visibility at 9,855 meters (32,333 ft). Captain William S. "Deak" Parsons of the Alberta Project, who holds the mission command, armed the bomb during the flight to minimize the risk of taking off. His assistant, Second Lieutenant Morris R. Jeppson, unleashed the security device 30 minutes before reaching the target area.
The release at 8:15 am (Hiroshima time) went as planned, and Little Boy took 43 seconds to drop from an airplane at 31,060 feet (9,470 m) to a predetermined detonation height of about 1.968 feet (600 m) above the city. Enola Gay covered 11.5 miles (18.5 km) before feeling the shock waves from the explosion. Despite the shock, both Enola Gay and The Great Artiste were damaged.
The explosion created an explosion equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT (67 TJ). The U-235 weapon is considered very inefficient, with only 1.7% of its fissile material reacting. The radius of total destruction is about a mile (1.6 km), with fires occurring at 4.4 square miles (11 km 2 ). The Americans estimated that 4.7 square miles (12 km 2 ) of the city were destroyed. Japanese officials determined that 69% of Hiroshima buildings were destroyed and another 6-7% damaged. About 70,000-80,000 people, 30% of the city's population, were killed by explosions and firestorms produced, and another 70,000 were injured. Of those killed, 20,000 soldiers.
Enola Gay returns safely to her base in Tinian with excitement, landing at 2:58 pm, after 12 hours 13 minutes. The Great Artiste and Required Evil follow in short intervals. Several hundred people, including journalists and photographers, had gathered to watch the plane return. Tibbets are the first to go down, and served with Cross Distinguished Service on the spot.
Nagasaki Mission
The Hiroshima mission was followed by another atomic attack. Originally scheduled for August 11, it was advanced by two days to 9 August due to bad weather forecasts. This time, the Fat Man nuclear arsenal was carried by B-29 Bockscar , which was tested by Major Charles W. Sweeney. Enola Gay , flown by Captain George Marquardt Crew B-10, is a weather surveillance aircraft for Kokura, the main target. Enola Gay reported a clear sky above Kokura, but when the Bockscar arrived, the city was obscured by the smoke from a fire from the conventional bombing of Yahata by 224 B-29 that day before. After three failed attempts, Bockscar is diverted to its secondary target, Nagasaki, where it drops its bomb. Unlike Hiroshima's mission, the Nagasaki mission has been described as a failed tactic, even though it fulfills its purpose. The crew experienced a number of problems in the execution, and had very little fuel when they landed at the Yontan Airfield emergency landing site in Okinawa.
Maps Enola Gay
Crews
Hiroshima Mission
The Gay Enola Crew on 6 August 1945, consisting of 12 men. The crew are:
- Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr.Ã, - pilot and aircraft commander
- Captain Robert A. Lewis - co-pilot; Enola Gay ' s regularly commandered plane *
- Major Thomas Ferebee - bomber
- Captain Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk Ã, - navigator
- Captain William S. Parsons, USN - commander of fighters and missions.
- First Lieutenant Jacob BeserÃ, - radar countermeasures (also the only person flying on both nuclear bombing planes)
- Lieutenant Two Morris R. Jeppson - a weaponeer assistant
- Staff Sergeant George R. "Bob" Caron Ã, - tail shooter *
- Staff Sergeant Wyatt E. Duzenbury - flight engineer *
- Sergeant Joe S. StiborikÃ, â € "radar operator *
- Sergeant Robert H. Shumard - assistant aviation technician *
- First Class Personal Richard H. NelsonÃ, - VHF radio operator *
Source: Campbell, 2005, p.Ã, 30. The asterisks show regular crew Enola Gay .
From Parsons mission commander, it says: "No one is more responsible for removing this bomb from the laboratory and into some form useful for combat operations than Captain Parsons, by his genius in the armaments business."
Nagasaki Mission
For the Nagasaki mission, Enola Gay is flown by Crew B-10, usually assigned to Up An 'Atom :
- Captain George W. MarquardtÃ, - airplane commander
- Second Lieutenant James M. Andersonà ¢ - co-pilot
- Second Lieutenant Russell GackenbachÃ, - navigator
- Captain James W. Strudwick - bomber
- First Lieutenant Jacob Beser - radar countermeasures
- Technical Sergeant James R. Corliss - aircraft engineer
- Sergeant Warren L. CobleÃ, - radio operator
- Sergeant Joseph M. DiJulioÃ, - radar operator
- Sergeant Melvin H. BiermanÃ, - tail shooter
- Sergeant Anthony D. Capua, Jr.Ã, - assistant engineer/scanner
Source: Campbell, 2005, p.Ã, 134, 191-192.
Next history
On November 6, 1945, Lewis flew Enola Gay back to the United States, arriving at the 509th new base at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico, on November 8. On April 29, 1946, Enola Gay left Roswell as part of the Crossroads Operations nuclear weapons test in the Pacific. It flies to the Kwajalein Atoll on May 1st. It was not chosen to drop a test at Bikini Atoll and leave Kwajalein on July 1, the test date, reaching Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Field, California, the next day.
The decision was made to preserve Enola Gay, and on July 24, 1946, the plane was flown to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona, in preparation for storage. On August 30, 1946, the title to the plane was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution and Enola Gay was removed from the USAAF inventory. From 1946 to 1961, Enola Gay was put into temporary storage in a number of locations. It was in Davis-Monthan from 1 September 1946 to 3 July 1949, when it was flown to Orchard Place Air Field, Park Ridge, Illinois, by Tibbets to be accepted by the Smithsonian. It was transferred to Pyote Air Force Base, Texas, on 12 January 1952, and then to Andrews, Maryland, Air Force Base on December 2, 1953, because the Smithsonian had no storage space for aircraft.
It is expected that the Air Force will keep the plane, but, has no hangar space, it is left outside in the remote part of the air base, exposed to the elements. Souvenir hunters broke and took off parts. Insects and birds then gain access to the plane. Paul E. Garber of the Smithsonian Institution, became concerned about the conditions of Enola Gay ', and on August 10, 1960, the Smithsonian staff began to dismantle the plane. The components were transported to a Smithsonian storage facility in Suitland, Maryland, on July 21, 1961.
Enola Gay has remained in Suitland for many years. In the early 1980s, two veterans of 509, Don Rehl and his former navigator in 509, Frank B. Stewart, began lobbying for the aircraft to be restored and displayed. They asked Tibbets and Senator Barry Goldwater in their campaign. In 1983, Walter J. Boyne, a former B-52 pilot with the Strategic Air Command, became director of the National Air and Space Museum, and he made Enola Gay '
The bomber restoration began on 5 December 1984, at the Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility of Paul E. Garber in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland. The propellers used on bombing missions were then sent to Texas A & amp; M University. One of these propellers is trimmed to 12.5 feet (3.8 m) for use at the Oran W. Nicks Low Speed ​​Wind Tunnel university. The lightweight aluminum variable vane is powered by an 1,250 kVA electric motor, providing wind speeds of up to 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). Two engines were rebuilt in Garber and two in San Diego Water & amp; Space Museum. Some parts and instruments have been deleted and can not be found. Replacements are found or created, and flagged so that future curators can tell them apart from the original components.
Recovery
The exhibit controversy
Enola Gay became the center of controversy at the Smithsonian Institution when the museum planned to put its body in public in 1995 as part of an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Crossroads Exhibition: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War , was designed by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Station staff, and organizes around Restored Gay.ola.
Critics of the planned exhibition, especially from the American Legion and Air Force Association, allege that the exhibition is too focused on Japanese casualties caused by nuclear bombs, not on the motivation for bombings or discussions about the bomb. role in ending the conflict with Japan. The exhibition brings national attention to many of the prolonged academic and political issues related to the retrospective view of the bombing. As a result, after unsuccessful efforts to revise the exhibition to meet the satisfaction of competing interest groups, the exhibition was canceled on January 30, 1995. Martin O. Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, was forced to resign. over the controversy. He then reflects that:
The dispute is not just about the atomic bomb. On the contrary, the dispute sometimes becomes a symbolic issue in a "cultural war" in which many Americans unite the decline of American power, domestic economic difficulties, threats in world trade and especially Japan's success, the loss of domestic work. , and even changes in the role and shift of American gender in American families. For some Americans, the people responsible for the manuscript are the ones who change America. The bomb, which represented the end of World War II and suggested the height of American power should be celebrated. At that time, in this assessment, an important symbol of America's "good war", one fought justly for a noble cause at a time when America was united. Those who in any way question the use of the bomb, in this emotional framework, the enemy of America.
The front plane continued to be exhibited on June 28, 1995. On July 2, 1995, three people were arrested for throwing ash and human blood on board aircraft, following an earlier incident in which a protester had thrown a red paint on the gallery carpet. The exhibition closed on May 18, 1998, and the aircraft was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.
Recovery and full view
Restoration work began in 1984, and will eventually require 300,000 staff hours. While the aircraft were on display, from 1995 to 1998, work continued on other unfixed components. The aircraft was shipped to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Museum in National and Aerospace Air in Chantilly, Virginia from March-June 2003, with the aircraft and wings reuniting for the first time since 1960 on April 10, 2003 and assembling finished at 8 August 2003. The aircraft has been exhibited at the Udvar-Hazy Center since the museum's pavilion opened on December 15, 2003. As a result of previous controversy, the nameplate around the aircraft only provides the same compact technical data as provided for other aircraft in the museum, without discussion of controversial issues. It reads:
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress is a bomber driven by the most sophisticated propellers of World War II, and the first bomber to ride a crew in a pressurized compartment. Though designed to fight in European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the world. In the Pacific, the B-29 sends a variety of air weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat in Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the US Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb in Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flies as an advanced weather surveillance aircraft that day. The third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation plane on both missions.
Moved from US Air Force
Wingspan: 43 m (141 ft 3 in)
Length: 30.2 m (99 ft)
Height: 9 m (27 ft 9 in)
Weight, blank: 32,580 kg (71,826 lb)
Weight, gross: 63,504 kg (140,000 lb)
Top speed: 546 km/h (339 mph)
Engine: 4 Wright R-3350-57 Cyclone turbo-supercharged radial, 2,200 hp Crew: 12 (Hiroshima mission)
Armament: two.50-caliber machine guns Roots: The "Little Boy" atomic bomb Manufacturer: Martin Co., Omaha, Nebr., 1945
A19500100000
The display of Enola Gay without reference to the historical context of World War II, the Cold War, or the development and spread of nuclear weapons caused controversy. A petition from a group calling themselves the Committee for National Discussion of Nuclear History and Recent Policy lamented the show of Enola Gay as a technological achievement, described as "a tremendous concern for victims, indifference to deep divisions among Americans about the merits of this action, and ignoring the feelings of most of the world's people ". It attracts the signatures of important figures including historian Gar Alperovitz, social critic Noam Chomsky, whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg, physicist Joseph Rotblat, writer Kurt Vonnegut, producer Norman Lear, actor Martin Sheen and filmmaker Oliver Stone.
References
Note
Quote
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
- The Smithsonian site at Enola Gay includes a link to the crew list and other details
- Eyewitness to Hiroshima, magazine Time , August 1, 2005
- "In Enola Gay ", Air & amp; Space , May 18, 2010
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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