Crew of enola gay

The Enola Gay (/ əˈnoʊlə /) is a Boeing B Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August , during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare. There were three strike planes that flew over Hiroshima that day: the Enola Gay, which carried the bomb, and two observation planes, the Great Artiste and the Necessary Evil.

Russell Gackenbach. The Enola Gay's crew consisted of 12 men led by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., who commanded the historic atomic bombing mission on August 6, Key members included co-pilot Robert Lewis, bombardier Thomas Ferebee, navigator Theodore Van Kirk, and radar countermeasure officer Jacob Beser.

The crew of the Enola Gay[back row (L-R)] Major Ferebee, Captain Van Kirk, Colonel Tibbets, Captain Lewis Staff Sgt. Caron, Sgt. Stiborik, Staff Sgt. Duzenbury, Pvt. 1st Class Nelson, Sgt. Shumard. Four members of the Enola Gay crew had been on Tibbets’s B crew in Europe: bombardier Ferebee (called by Tibbets “the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bombsight”) navigator Van Kirk, tail gunner Caron, and flight engineer Duzenbury.

Reproduction is prohibited. 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. Those who serve on ships can tell you that each vessel has its own moods and spirit, they consider ships to be living things. 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.

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. 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.

Paul Tibbets Jr. In the early months of the War, he commanded a squadron of B Flying Fortresses flying daylight bombing missions over Occupied Europe. Tibbets returned to the States in February to help Boeing with the development of the B Superfortress, perhaps the most complex aircraft built to date. 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 belonging to the soon to be formed th Composite Group composite because the Group would employ C Skytrain and C Skymaster transport aircraft along with B bombers.

LtCol Tibbets was assigned to command the th in September and he was able to select his personal aircraft while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. He named his aircraft Enola Gay after his mother. The bomber was delivered to the th's base at Wendover Field, Utah, on June 14, 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 "gadget" developed by the Manhattan Project was, of course, the atomic bomb. 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 "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.

what happened to the crew of the enola gay

Over Iwo Jima, she rendezvoused with two other Bs, the Great Artiste loaded with instrumentation and Necessary Evil carrying photographic equipment. Navy Captain William S. A half hour before reaching the target, the safety devices were removed from the device and at local time "Little Boy" was released from Enola Gay from an altitude of 31, feet. It took 43 seconds for the device to drop to its detonation point 1, feet above the city of Hiroshima, Japan.

By the time the shockwaves from the detonation reached the aircraft it had traveled eleven and a half miles.

Although there was major buffeting, the aircraft on the mission suffered no damage. Enola Gay touched down on Tinian at after the twelve-hour and thirteen-minute mission. LtCol Tibbets was the first to disembark the aircraft and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on the spot. On August 9, Enola Gay , piloted by Capt. George Marquart was the weather observation aircraft over Kokura, Japan, the primary target for B Bockscar carrying the "Fat Man" implosion-type device.

The day before, two hundred and twenty-four Bs had dropped conventional bombs on nearby Yahata and smoke from those fires obscured the primary target, so Bockscar was diverted to Nagasaki. Because of delays over the primary target, mission aircraft were low on fuel and had to touch down at the emergency field on Okinawa before returning to Tinian.

In April she returned to the Pacific where she was an alternate aircraft to drop the Able test bomb during Operation Crossroads B Dave's Dream was selected for the test. The decision to retire Enola Gay for preservation was made in late July. Ownership was transferred to the Smithsonian and she was removed from the Air Force's inventory on August 30, Unfortunately, the Institution did not have large enough storage facilities to house the huge aircraft, so she was shuttled and stored at various air bases, often outdoors because of a shortage of hangar space.