Enola Gay, 1945

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay was used to drop, from an altitude of 31, 600 feet, the Little Boy atomic weapon, destroying Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:16 a.m. local time. The airplane was flown by Col. Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Group, and had a crew of 11. Days before the mission, Tibbets named the airplane Enola Gay in honor of his mother. Enola Gay returned safely to its base on Tinian to great fanfare. The Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29s, Necessary Evil which was used to carry scientific observers, and as a camera plane to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb and The Great Artiste instrumented for blast measurement. Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber

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A Bomb A-bomb Atom Atomic B 29 B-29 Enola Hiroshima Strategic Superfortress

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