Parsons of the United States Navy was seconded to the mission as the weaponeer because he had nuclear training.įor its role in the bombing of Japan, the Enola Gay has become famous. The assistant weaponeer was Second Lieutenant Morris R.
Stiborik was radar operator, and the VHF radio operator was Private First Class Richard H. Lieutenant Jacob Beser handled radar countermeasures, while Sergeant Joe S. Duzenberry was flight engineer and Sergeant Robert S. Lewis as copilot, Captain Theodore van Kirk as navigator, and Major Thomas Ferebee as bombardier. In addition to Captain Tibbets, the crew included Captain Robert A. Notably, the Enola Gay's bombing mission over Hiroshima was considered a textbook perfect mission, proceeding precisely as planned and scheduled. The plane took off from Tinian, in the Marianas Islands, with a 12 man crew aboard, accompanied by The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil. He christened it after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.
When the order was given to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 5 August 1945, Captain Paul Tibbets, the pilot in charge, decided to rename the plane. When completed, the plane measured 99 feet (30.2 meters) long and had a wingspan of 141.25 feet (43 meters). This modification mission, codenamed "Silverplate," turned out a number of aircraft equipped to handle nuclear weapons. It was selected along with a group of other aircraft for modifications designed to allow it to carry a nuclear weapon while flying above antiaircraft guns. This B-29 Superfortress bomber was manufactured at Lockheed Martin's Omaha plant.
bomber that dropped atomic bombs on Japan during the second world war. Today, the restored Enola Gay can be viewed at the National Air and Space Museum. After the bombing, the plane flew only one other combat mission, a scouting mission to prepare for the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, before being preserved at the Smithsonian Institution as a historic artifact. The Enola Gay is an aircraft that was famously used to drop the atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945. The Enola Gay carried and dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.