What Was the Enola Gay? | At the Smhsonian | Smhsonian Magaze

Contents:

• HERE'S WHY THE PILOT OF ENOLA GAY HAD NO REGRETS ABOUT DROPPG THE FIRST ATOM BOMB SIGNED BY OPPENHEIMER
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• JOHN TRAVOLTA HAD GAY RELATNSHIP WH HIS PILOT FOR SIX YEARS, FORMER ASSISTANT CLAIMS
• DECIDG WHETHER TO LIVE OR DIE: GEE GAY, MIDWAY SURVIVOR
• ENOLA GAY PILOT AD AT 92
• HIROSHIMA’S ENOLA GAY RRIED 12 MEN, HOPE AND THE WORLD’S ADLIT WEAPON
• ENOLA GAY: PILOT’S-EYE VIEW
• THE INLIBLE ENOLA GAY
• CANNED CKTAIL ‘GAY WATER’ AIMS TO SH ON BUD LIGHT’S DYLAN MULVANEY DISASTER
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

HERE'S WHY THE PILOT OF ENOLA GAY HAD NO REGRETS ABOUT DROPPG THE FIRST ATOM BOMB SIGNED BY OPPENHEIMER

On July 3, 1987, 42 years after droppg the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Enola Gay pilot Pl Tibbets rells his mdset durg the fateful missn on Augt 6, 1945.

Early the morng of Augt 6, 1945, a US Air Force B-29 Superfortrs, the Enola Gay, took off om s base Tian, near Guam, and head for the cy of Hiroshima southern was rryg a 9, 700-pound top-secret bomb named Ltle Boy.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

Hiroshima had already been woken by several air-raid sirens that morng, which had proved to be false when the Enola Gay approached at 8:15 a. The pilot's seat of the Enola Gay moments before takg off for the missn to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

A bate has raged ever sce over whether the US was right to lnch the have argued that the bombgs were an humane targetg of civilians and that there were other optns ntend that such vastatn was necsary to force Japan's surrenr and avoid a adly ary mpaign through the Japane how did the explosn weigh wh the 12 men aboard the Enola Gay who dropped the bomb that day? The are the voic explag what has been like to be a gay man1 the Amerin ary over the prev seventy or so years, om World War II veterans their late eighti to young servicemen on active duty. Life Today as a Gay ServicemanHow we got here: In 1992, many people thought that the discrimatn was nearly over.

"I remember beg the Castro, " says John Forrett (army rerve, 1987–99), "and watchg the TV at a bar wh some iends, watchg Al Gore and Bill Clton swearg that if they beme the tag team for Ameri they were gog to get rid of the harassment of gays and lbians servg the ary. " Gay people were allowed the ary but only as long as they didn’t reveal their sexualy; to facilate this, all members of the ary were also prohibed om quirg about anyone’s possible orientatn. Servicemen were advised that until then the policy would still apply, and that they uld potentially face s sanctns if they intify themselv publicly as gay.

JOHN TRAVOLTA HAD GAY RELATNSHIP WH HIS PILOT FOR SIX YEARS, FORMER ASSISTANT CLAIMS

’ "Air Force #1: "Two of my iends were disvered, both officers—’s a long and arduo procs for an officer to get kicked out for beg gay. You’re a Mare, you don’t md gettg dirty, gog out to the field and not showerg for weeks at a, if you were gay, when you have to shower wh all the other guys you’d get all exced. I mean, if you want to hi, the Mare Corps is one of the bt plac to do that, bee nobody wants to adm they are standg next to a gay guy.

I had ma about halfway through and the recer was trated wh how long was takg me, and he said, ’Well, basilly, are you gay?

DECIDG WHETHER TO LIVE OR DIE: GEE GAY, MIDWAY SURVIVOR

One Man’s Operatn Iraqi FreedomMany gay servicemen the morn era—cludg Eric Alva (Mar, 1991–2004)—have pleted long ary reers whout their sexualy ever beg revealed.

And therefore few people realized that the first Amerin serly wound the vasn of Iraq durg the send Gulf war was a gay Alva signed up, before "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " he had to lie on his paperwork. Lbians have suffered unr the same prohibns and prejudic and share many of the same experienc, as well as some that are distct, but this article ncentrat on the experience of gay men. And when, 2006, the battl over "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" the ary and gay marriage the wir muny were simmerg, Alva’s boyiend at the time poted out to him that he did have some notoriety that might be of e.

(The meetgs have been arranged through a private onle work lled OutServe, set up only last year, which allows gay and lbian servicepeople a safe and secure way of fdg and munitg wh one another. To be the ary and still try to live any kd of life as a gay man, ’s not Force #4 (senr airman, four years): "Right now our relatnships don’t exist.

ENOLA GAY PILOT AD AT 92

In the shadow of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " whenever gay servicemen did face any kd of homophobic harassment, they were powerls to draw attentn to whout potentially triggerg the end of their ary reer. The le self beme the very tool of their opprsn: "The ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, " says Joseph Rocha (navy, 2004–7), "punish homosexuals who ply, and protects bigots. But when you get ught up the ltle groups of boys, the first exce for anythg that don’t f wh them is that you’re gay.

HIROSHIMA’S ENOLA GAY RRIED 12 MEN, HOPE AND THE WORLD’S ADLIT WEAPON

Of a number of latg events—Rocha was also force-fed dog food and locked to a sh-filled dog kennel—the most abive and explicly homophobic was when he was orred by his manr to act a dog-trag scenar, repeated over and over so that every dog the un uld be n through . Lovg so much that each scenar was gayer and more disgtg—the troductn of fake semen, that I would have to wipe my face, or that I would have to make slurpg nois.

ENOLA GAY: PILOT’S-EYE VIEW

Anyone who gets off thkg that ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ unr the Bh admistratn anyone uld have gone and said, ’Hey, I’m beg antagonized unr the prciple that I might be gay’ and feel safe is absurd. You would have to have no gay iends, no iends that knew you were gay, no iends who unrstood what was like to be you.

Life Seventy Years Ago as a Gay Serviceman: World War IIIt was only really around the Send World War that ary discrimatn beme dified and anized, and that the foc moved om simply sanctns agast homosexual acts to an attempt to intify and weed out homosexual tennci—though, as would be seen aga and aga, when fightg bodi were need badly enough, such ncerns would often evaporate. ’ "John McNeill, 85: "They were sperate need of more nnon fodr—they didn’t re whether we were gay or straight.

THE INLIBLE ENOLA GAY

"JM: "I found out right after the war that if someone were discharged as homosexual, a notice of that fact was sent home to their lol draft board, so that their whole muny would e to know that they were gay. And this led directly to the formatn of gay ghettos the major ci, where people who uldn’t go home, bee their sexualy had been revealed by the army, had to move to Greenwich Village or the San Francis Castro. Manzella operated fully wh the vtigatn; when he was asked for evince that he wasn’t jt claimg to be gay orr to trigger a discharge, he even supplied photos, and footage of him and his boyiend passnately kissg on a road trip.

A month later he was lled to see his battaln manr and told that the vtigatn had been closed: "His words were ’We found no proof of homosexualy. "While he was ployed, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a mpaigng group who had been givg him guidance, told him that 60 Mut wanted to do a piece about an openly gay man servg a bat zone, persuadg him that would give a voice to the "65, 000 men and women the ary" who weren’t able to live as openly as he was.

I was nfed until beme clear that, partly by chance and partly by a cha of personal remendatns over the years, this trailer park had bee some kd of gay-veteran hot spot: There are eight or ten others livg here, and more nearby. He says that he didn’t seek promotn past a certa pot bee would have required an vtigatn to get him clearance, and he was ncerned they would disver his subscriptns to gay magaz. ’ " They claimed that he had been named as a homosexual and prsured him to nfirm the tails, showg him photos of other men who were implited.

CANNED CKTAIL ‘GAY WATER’ AIMS TO SH ON BUD LIGHT’S DYLAN MULVANEY DISASTER

One Man’s Vietnam"Back the ’50s Oregon, " rells Tom Norton (Army, 1968-71), "they were still puttg people jail for homosexual activy, and that certaly sends a strong msage to a young kid. I went to Vietnam wh post-trmatic strs disorr, which I had had om the age of 5 when I learned the word homosexual and knew that’s what I was.

"Norton wasn’t sexually active Vietnam—"I would numb myself and avoid anythg sexual"—and was only years later that he realized that some of the men his social circle there were gay. He stggled so much wh growg up gay Vietnam and beg ostracized for his sexualy, jt wantg to be loved and red for wh the war gog on around him.

"Air Force #2: "There’s one good iend that I thought about tellg, but always right when I thk, ’Okay, ’s ol to tell him, ’ he’ll say somethg that is kd of weird about gay people. The senator I worked for and the ngrsman I worked for knew I was gay—they were both nservative Republins—and they wrote a letter of remendatn to get me to the Mare Corps.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

"Navy #3 (manr, rerv, twenty years): "A pal of me on a rrier went to the CO and said, ’What is your policy on gays? ’ The CO looked at my iend and said, ’If somebody wants to get off my ship for beg gay, they have to e to me wh two Polaroids, both of them they have to be clearly suckg ck, and I want to be able to see their face. One Man’s Secret Too ManyIt’s temptg to see gay servicemen’s entire ary existence through the prism of this sgle issue—the mpaigner, the opprsed, the stoic endurer—and as the totaly of who they are.

In June 1998, Richard Merrt (Mar, 1985–98) appeared on the ver of The New York Tim Magaze, uniform but wh his face obscured, and si the story scribed what life was actually like for someone gay servg the ary.