“I knew it was an important mission because we were told this mission had the potential to end the war,” Nelson wrote.
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That was one tipoff to the gravity of the situation. they boarded the plane in the glare of floodlights, with hundreds of officials present. They ate breakfast in the mess hall and said prayers in the chapel. As Nelson himself related in a posthumously published autobiography, “At the time I still did not fully understand the scope of the mission, or the strength of the weapon we were carrying.” 5 shortly before midnight for a briefing in which they learned they would be dropping a bomb. The crew had no idea what they were practicing for.
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Nelson flew on three routine missions on the B-29, each time accompanied by two other planes. Plane and crew were sent to Tinian, one of the Mariana Islands. On June 14, he was among those who went to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up the silver-plated B-29 from the factory. “He thought: ‘I can’t be a pilot, but I can be on a plane.’” A sergeant looked at his papers and told him: “Oh, you’re meant for overseas.” “Dick was just elated,” Nancy said. In April 1945, he reported to the 509th Squadron in Wendover, Utah. Unbeknownst to him, he was being investigated by the Manhattan Project’s security team. Everyone else in his class received assignments and shipped out. Instead, he went to the Air Corps’ radio school in South Dakota and after graduation was sent to the B-29 base in Clovis, New Mexico to await orders. Army after high school, hoping to become a pilot like his older brother. Nevertheless, she heard her husband’s stories so many times in the years to come that in his speaking engagements, if he’d forget a detail, he would look at her and she would prompt him.īorn in Moscow, Idaho in 1925, Richard relocated with his family to Los Angeles at age 3 and enlisted in the U.S. Nancy Nelson was only 13 when World War II ended. Shortly afterwards, she was moved to the Smithsonian Institution and later disassembled and moved to a storage facility.We met Thursday, the 75th anniversary of the bombing. In 1946, Enola Gay took part in another nuclear action, specifically the Operation Crossroads atomic testing in the South Pacific. Enola Gay’s service continued, however, and she returned to the United States where she first operated out of Roswell, New Mexico. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally forced the Japanese to lay down their arms, and World War II officially ended three weeks later when the surrender documents were signed aboard the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Harbor. When clouds and smoke hindered the mission, the target was changed to the city of Nagasaki. This time, the B-29 was assigned to serve as the weather reconnaissance craft. Three days later, Enola Gay and Tibbets were scheduled to return to the skies for the bombing of Kokura. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb-known as “Little Boy”-on the city of Hiroshima. Paul Tibbets waves from the cockpit of Enola Gay, 6 August 1945Īt the head of the 509th, Tibbets piloted the B-29 Superfortress-which he named for his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets-that led the bombing of the two cities. In 1945, that group was assigned to carry out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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As the war neared its end, Tibbets was appointed commander of the 509th Composite Group. By 1942, he was promoted to the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group.Īfter taking part in several bombing missions in Europe, Tibbets returned to the United States and played a pivotal role in the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. became a pilot in 1938, which enabled him to take part in anti-submarine patrols after the Decemattack on Pearl Harbor. Although he originally planned o becoming a doctor, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. In 1937, a 22-year-old man from Quincy, Illinois enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps. The story of the Enola Gay actually starts before the outbreak of the War in the Pacific. The History of the Plane That Devastated Japan She would soon serve an important purpose that was aimed at finally putting an end to the war.
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Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, was placed into service in May of 1945, toward the end of the Second World War. But one plane in particular has a more difficult and ambivalent history. Storied battleships, mighty aircraft carriers, and fearsome warplanes all contributed to the massive Allied forces in the Pacific Theater. There were many memorable ships and planes that played a larger-than-life role in the American war effort of the 1940s. Enola Gay landing after the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945