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Today the Enola Gay remains in the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC while Bockscar is in the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. So what is largely forgotten is that while Bock didn't pilot Bockscar he was in fact present in the other B-29, The Great Artiste, which was used for scientific measures and photography of the effects caused by the release of Fat Man. When Sweeney and his crew were chosen to deliver the Fat Man while Bock and his crew were chosen to provide observation support the decision was made to swap the crews rather than to move the complex instrumentation equipment. Sweeney had used Bockscar for more than ten training and practice missions even though he and his usual crew had piloted another aircraft named The Great Artiste. Yet it wasn’t Bock who piloted the aircraft he had named on August 9, 1945. In the case of Bockscar -not to be confused with the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar -the moniker was a play on Captain Frederick Bock's last name, who had previously participated in air raids on Japan that were launched from parts of China controlled by the Allies. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay, had named his aircraft for his mother “Enola Gay Tibbets” (1893–1983) who herself was named after the heroine of the novel Enola or, Her Fatal Mistake. What is also notable about the two aircraft is that their respective pilots who regularly flew the aircraft named the planes. 50 caliber machine guns and one twenty-millimeter cannon in the tail, these modified aircraft had retailed the tail guns and even had their armor removed to save weight to be able to carry the extremely dangerous atomic bombs at extreme flight distances. 50 caliber machine guns in remote-controlled turrets along with two additional. Radiation sickness eventually claimed many others.Bockscar was actually one of fifteen specially modified “Silverplate” B-29s that were assigned to the 509th Composite Group. Ninety-five percent of those killed at Nagasaki died from burns, but at Hiroshima thousands were killed by falling debris. Three days later, the Enola Gay flew as an advance weather reconnaissance aircraft for a B-29 called Bockscar, which dropped the atom bomb Fat Man on Nagasaki, killing 39,000. 13, dropping its single bomb at 8:16 a.m.Īs Tibbets wrote later, "A terrible, strong and unimaginable explosion occurred near the central section of the city."
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As ordered by President Harry Truman, it took off Aug. It reached the U.S.-held island of Tinian that July, and was used for training and bombing practice with non-nuclear munitions. of Omaha, the Enola Gay was personally selected at the plant for the historic bombing by mission commander Col. It was the first bomber with a fully pressurized cabin for the crew, making-high altitude missions practical. Originally intended for action against Nazi Germany, the Superfortress instead entered service in the spring of 1944 as a long-range bomber given the mission of dropping heavy payloads on the Japanese home islands. We must remember that this airplane is a part of our history and it is a part of who we are." They represent the thousands of other B-29s that flew and hundreds of thousands of airmen who participated in that conflict. The events that this airplane participated in in 1945 represent many things. "The Enola Gay is much more than an artifact," Daso said. We think that's in the past and we'd like to keep it there."Īccording to Dik Daso, curator of modern military aircraft at the museum, B-29s dropping incendiary bombs killed far more Japanese in Tokyo in a single night than died at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the second and last enemy target struck with an American nuclear weapon. Millions of people went by and it was essentially without controversy during that time. "The forward fuselage on display at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. "It's important to point out that the controversy was over a proposed display that never took place," Dailey said. The veterans and congressional allies argued that the Japanese were brutal aggressors in the war and that the use of atomic weapons was justified to end the conflict without further loss of American lives.
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The proposed exhibition was scrapped in favor of a smaller, straightforward one that featured the front portion of the Enola Gay's fuselage and confined itself to the details of the mission. The museum's director at the time, Martin Harwit, resigned to avoid demotion. The exhibition was to be part of the nationwide observance of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, but the proposal caused a furor with the American Legion and other veterans' groups and prompted congressional demands for its cancellation.