Ground crew of the enola gay
On August 9, Enola Gay, piloted by Capt. LtCol Tibbets was the first to disembark the aircraft and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on the spot. Although there was major buffeting, the aircraft on the mission suffered no damage.Įnola Gay touched down on Tinian at 2:58 after the twelve-hour and thirteen-minute mission. By the time the shockwaves from the detonation reached the aircraft it had traveled eleven and a half miles. It took 43 seconds for the device to drop to its detonation point 1,968 feet above the city of Hiroshima, Japan. A half hour before reaching the target, the safety devices were removed from the device and at 8:15 local time "Little Boy" was released from Enola Gay from an altitude of 31,060 feet.
"Deak" Parsons was in overall charge of the mission and armed the "gadget" in flight to minimize danger to ground personnel. Over Iwo Jima, she rendezvoused with two other B-29s, the Great Artiste loaded with instrumentation and Necessary Evil carrying photographic equipment. The "Little Boy" gun-type nuclear weapon was loaded into the bomb-bay and Enola Gay took off from Tinian in the early morning darkness of August 5 for the six-hour flight to the target. Enola Gay flew eight training missions in July, including dropping "pumpkin bombs" (bombs which were the same size, weight, and shape as the "Fat Man" implosion devices but loaded with conventional explosives) on industrial targets in Kobe and Nagoya. The "gadget" developed by the Manhattan Project was, of course, the atomic bomb. In less than two weeks, she was winging her way to Guam where some bomb-bay modifications were made before proceeding to Tinian Island on July 6. The bomber was delivered to the 509th's base at Wendover Field, Utah, on June 14, 1945. He named his aircraft Enola Gay after his mother.
#Ground crew of the enola gay serial number
Martin Aircraft factory in Omaha, Nebraska, a Model B-29-45-MO, Serial number 44-86292. LtCol Tibbets was assigned to command the 509th in September 1944 and he was able to select his personal aircraft while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. Unknown to Tibbets, the Manhattan Project was developing a "gadget" which would have a major impact on the War, and this gadget was to be delivered from a B-29 belonging to the soon to be formed 509th Composite Group (composite because the Group would employ C-47 Skytrain and C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft along with B-29 bombers). Tibbets returned to the States in February 1943 to help Boeing with the development of the B-29 Superfortress, perhaps the most complex aircraft built to date. In the early months of the War, he commanded a squadron of B-17 Flying Fortresses flying daylight bombing missions over Occupied Europe. Paul Tibbets Jr., of Columbus, Ohio, joined the Army Air Force in 1937 and qualified as a command pilot in 1938. A warplane, however, will be carrying its pilot and crew into (and hopefully out of) incredibly hazardous conditions, so if there might be some spirits on the craft, it is wise to make peace with them. In the industrial age, automobiles and aircraft are often seen as tools for accomplishing a specific task, and therefore are usually not imbued with the spiritual presence which requires a name like a ship does. It has been said that building and launching a ship is as close as a man can ever come to knowing the sense of accomplishment a woman feels at giving birth, so it is little wonder that naming a ship is an important tradition.
Those who serve on ships can tell you that each vessel has its own moods and spirit, they consider ships to be living things.
Ever since men have been able to devise vessels to carry them onto the ocean and out of sight of land, he had given a good deal of thought to naming his ships.