Stiborik was radar operator, and the VHF radio operator was Private First Class Richard H. Lieutenant Jacob Beser handled radar countermeasures, while Sergeant Joe S.
Duzenberry was flight engineer and Sergeant Robert S. Lewis as copilot, Captain Theodore van Kirk as navigator, and Major Thomas Ferebee as bombardier. In addition to Captain Tibbets, the crew included Captain Robert A. Notably, the Enola Gay's bombing mission over Hiroshima was considered a textbook perfect mission, proceeding precisely as planned and scheduled. The plane took off from Tinian, in the Marianas Islands, with a 12 man crew aboard, accompanied by The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil. He christened it after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. When the order was given to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 5 August 1945, Captain Paul Tibbets, the pilot in charge, decided to rename the plane. When completed, the plane measured 99 feet (30.2 meters) long and had a wingspan of 141.25 feet (43 meters). This modification mission, codenamed "Silverplate," turned out a number of aircraft equipped to handle nuclear weapons. It was selected along with a group of other aircraft for modifications designed to allow it to carry a nuclear weapon while flying above antiaircraft guns. This B-29 Superfortress bomber was manufactured at Lockheed Martin's Omaha plant. bomber that dropped atomic bombs on Japan during the second world war. Today, the restored Enola Gay can be viewed at the National Air and Space Museum. After the bombing, the plane flew only one other combat mission, a scouting mission to prepare for the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, before being preserved at the Smithsonian Institution as a historic artifact. The Enola Gay is an aircraft that was famously used to drop the atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945. At 8:09, the crew of the Enola Gay could see the city appear below and received a message indicating that the weather was good over Hiroshima.The Enola Gay carried and dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Radio stations broadcast another warning for people to take shelter, but many ignored it. By 8:00, Japanese radar again detected B-29s heading toward the city. Enola Gay's Flight PathĪt 7:25, the Enola Gay was cruising over Hiroshima at 26,000 feet. The people began their daily work and thought the danger had passed. Soon afterward, a weather plane circled over the city, but there was no sign of bombers. By 7:00, the Japanese radar net detected aircraft heading toward Japan, and the alert was broadcast throughout the Hiroshima area. Tibbets announced to the crew that the plane was carrying the world's first atomic bomb. Morris Jeppson, finished the assembly and armed the bomb in the bomb bay after takeoff.Īfter 6:00, the bomb was fully armed on board the Enola Gay. If that happened to the Enola Gay, the bomb might explode and wipe out half the island. Some heavily loaded B-29s had crashed on takeoff from Tinian. Deak Parsons, was concerned about taking off with Little Boy fully assembled and live. Colonel Paul Tibbets waves from the Enola Gay Measuring over 10 feet (3 meters) long and almost 30 inches (75 centimeters) across, it weighed close to 5 tons (4.5 tonnes) and had the explosive force of 20,000 tons (18,000 tonnes) of TNT. The four-engine plane, followed by two observation planes carrying cameras and scientific instruments, was one of seven making the trip to Hiroshima, but only the Enola Gay was carrying a bomb - a bomb that was expected to knock out almost everything within a 3-mile (5-kilometer) area. This mission was piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, commanding officer of the 509th Composite Group, who named the bomber after his mother. on August 6, 1945, a modified American B-29 Superfortress bomber named the Enola Gay left the island of Tinian for Hiroshima, Japan.