The Enola Gay and the secret history behd the Hiroshima missn - Washgton Post

Contents:

• HIROSHIMA’S ENOLA GAY RRIED 12 MEN, HOPE AND THE WORLD’S ADLIT WEAPON
• WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ENOLA GAY AFTER IT DROPPED THE ATOMIC BOMB
• EXHIBG THE ENOLA GAY

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

Tibbets Jr., 30, had handpicked the airplane on the assembly le Nebraska three months before and had jt had his mother’s name, “Enola Gay, ” pated black letters on the the plane mbled down the airstrip at over 100 mph, he had his lucky cigarette se wh him one pocket, and a box ntag 12 cyani psul Aug. Two other B-29s, the “Great Artiste” and “Necsary Evil, ” were supposed to go along to take pictur and rerd “Enola Gay” was the “strike ship.

”Fifteen hundred to the north-northwt, unr a wang crcent moon, lay a 400-year-old Japane cy most Amerins probably had never heard of but whose name was about to be etched to the pag of was an important enemy ary se wh a wartime populatn about 280, 000, acrdg to the historians Gordon Thomas and Max half of them were about to be cerated, cshed, and irradiated by the c atomic weapon named “Ltle Boy” that the Enola Gay of thoands more would die the same way at Nagasaki a few days later, and the world would subsequently be hearg about megatons, mutual assured stctn, proliferatn, nuclear wter, meltdowns and dirty would be the start of a ightful era of weapons that uld fy ntrol and menace as “Dimpl Eight Two” picked up speed that morng, s missn was born of s time: liver a blow that the Uned Stat hoped might fally end the global butchery of World War II. )This week, memoratns are schled across the untry, wh socially distanced ndlelight vigils and the tollg of bells, and bee of the vid-19, ceremoni and remembranc have moved Enola Gay, the Boeg B-29 Superfortrs that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, is seen on display July 29, 2020, at the Steven F. (Matt McCla/The Washgton Post)One of the Enola Gay’s four eng.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ENOLA GAY AFTER IT DROPPED THE ATOMIC BOMB

If this ighteng new weapon worked, the thkg went, would shorten the war, albe at a dreadful st human first the Enola Gay had to get off the ground. William Parsons, who flew on the missn as the bomb bee of that risk, the 10-foot-long “Ltle Boy” had not yet been was a “gun-type” bomb, one which an explosive charge would fire a “subcril” piece of uranium 235 down a six-foot-long “gun” barrel to a send subcril piece of uranium, acrdg to Thomas and created cril mass and the explosive nuclear cha reactn that would lay waste to four cloth bags of explosive and the tonator would not be serted until the plane was the Enola Gay was now dog 180 mph but was nng out of ground.

EXHIBG THE ENOLA GAY

(Natnal Archiv)The weapon is hoisted to the bomb bay of the B-29 dubbed “Enola Gay” Augt 1945 on Tian Island the Northern Mariana Islands.

(Natnal Archiv)‘A fiery red re’Thirty-one thoand feet above, the Enola Gay’s bombardier, Maj. So had an ternal radar system that tected the ground, tripped the tonator at that altu, and iated the tonatn bomb traveled for six and explod jt short of the Enola Gay, meanwhile, lurched upward on sheddg the weight of the bomb and executed a hairp turn to pe the expected shock wave of the first, the crew saw and felt nothg. (AP)‘Brighter than the sun’As the Enola Gay and s two rt plan head back Tian, a young scientist named Luis W.

After the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. The Enola Gay is a B-29 Superfortrs, which pilot Pl Tibbets named after his mother, and which had been stripped of everythg but the necsi, so as to be thoands of pounds lighter than an ordary plane of that make. While did not drop the bomb on Nagasaki, the Enola Gay did take flight to get data on the weather the lead-up to the send strike on Japan.