Japan officially surrendered on September 2, 1945. Three days later the Enola Gay conducted weather reconnaissance in the lead-up to the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. Tibbets flew the Enola Gay back to Tinian, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. While some 1,900 feet (580 metres) above the city, Little Boy exploded, killing tens of thousands and causing widespread destruction. At 8:15 am, the bomb was released over Hiroshima.
See all videos for this articleĪt approximately 2:45 am on August 6, 1945, Tibbets-who was now a full colonel-and a crew of 11 took off from Tinian island carrying a uranium bomb that was known as “Little Boy.” The Enola Gay-Tibbets had a maintenance man paint that name on the aircraft’s nose shortly before takeoff-was accompanied by various other planes.
From The Second World War: Allied Victory (1963), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation. The B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay took off from the Mariana Islands on August 6, 1945, bound for Hiroshima, Japan, where, with the dropping of the atomic bomb, it heralded a new and terrible concept of warfare.
It is a fine adaptation of the book and the preparation of the mission and the top secret nature of the job given to those young men is an important story that sheds light on why the bomb was dropped on human beings. The actors in this mini-series do a fine job in trying to express the attitudes of WWII flyers and ground crew.
It was common practice for bomber crews in all the theaters of operation in World War II to name their aircraft after sweet hearts, wives or mothers. Enola Gay was the name of Colonel Tibbets' mother. It has become urban legend that he went insane because of remorse following Hiroshima. One of the crew members had a depressive personality and suffered an un-related nervous breakdown later in life. How the numbers were arrived at is anybody's guess. Presidential advisers estimated the cost of invading the Japanese islands in human lives (American lives) would be in the hundreds of thousands. American diplomats were un-aware of these attempts. The Japanese were using back door channels to find a way of surrendering with honor, or at least to surrender and preserve their Emperor. What was the attitude of the flight crews who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Where does the name Enola Gay come from? Is it true that one of the crew spent years in an insane asylum after committing this unspeakable act? Was the action justified? The book this is based on answers many of these questions. Hard to believe there are only two comments on this very interesting subject.