Jeppson was worried that without some addition, the importance of his role, along with that of Navy Capt. Jeppson was concerned because he learned his name, along with two others, would be absent from a list of crew members long-ago stenciled on the side of the infamous B-29 bomber by the military. The new Udvar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was about to open with the Enola Gay on display. It was 2003 when Jeppson felt compelled to come forward. Today he lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Molly, retired after a career spent at the helm of a handful of high-tech companies and working as consultant for the Department of Energy. Jeppson turned to graduate studies at University of California, Berkeley, after leaving the military. The blast, equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, destroyed a four square-mile area, and killing an.
Enola gay named after serial number#
Now 90, Tibbets lives in a modest brick home in a well-kept neighborhood in Columbus and travels occasionally for air shows and veterans’ ceremonies. On August 5, 1945, Colonel Paul Tibbets formally named B-29 serial number 44-86292 Enola Gay after his mother she was named after the heroine, Enola. Tibbets (1915-2007, born in Quincy, Illinois) was the pilot of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, named after Tibbets’ mother, that dropped the first atomic bomb (nicknamed Little Boy) on the city of Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” the 84-year-old said from his suburban Atlanta retirement home near the base of Stone Mountain, where a large relief memorial carved out of the bare rock depicts Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. “I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. The 9,000-pound bomb fell down toward the city as the Enola Gay banked away, the crew hoping to escape with their lives.ĭespite decades of controversy over whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb - which left some 140,000 dead in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later - Van Kirk remains convinced it was necessary because it shortened the war and relieved the Allies of having to mount a land invasion that might have cost far more lives on both sides. Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned - the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule. It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalls. 6, 1945, Tibbets' B-29 dropped the nearly five-ton bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.Van Kirk, then 24, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped “Little Boy” - the world’s first atomic bomb - over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. Paul Tibbets, who piloted the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb, has died at age 92. Tibbets is pictured in the cockpit of the Enola Gay, the bomber he named after his mother. B/w, 10x8 overall, image 9½圆¾ (one surface). Tibbets waving inside a cockpit of a plane. Likewise, people ask, did the plane that dropped the atomic bomb survive? TIBBETS Black and white publicity photograph of Paul W. “Immediately took the airplane to a 180° turn. When the bomb left the airplane, the plane jumped because you released 10,000 lbs.,” Theodore Van Kirk, the plane's navigator, later recalled. It was used in the film "Waterworld".Īlso, what happened to the plane that dropped the atomic bomb? After the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. She was Enola Gay Haggard before she married my dad, and my dad never supported me with the flying he hated airplanes and motorcycles. Enola Gay is the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped Little Boy, the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare, when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The Enola Gay eventually was restored, and, in 2003, it went on permanent display at the Steven F. And the Enola Gay was named after Paul Tibbets: My mother. Adaptations included removing most of the armament installing heavier racks to support the heavy bomb and replacing the engines. Sadly famous for the B29 bomber that dropped "Little Boy", the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. The Enola Gay had been altered to serve the purpose of carrying and deploying the heavy bomb. It is a Native American name meaning MAGNOLIA. Similarly one may ask, what does Enola mean?ĮNOLA stands for the word ALONE backwards. The song is named after the aeroplane, a USAAF B-29 Superfortress called Enola Gay (named after its pilots mother) which dropped 'Little Boy' the first atomic bomb to be used in an act of War on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, to bring an end to the Second World War. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused the near-complete destruction of the city. 'Enola Gay' is a song by British synthpop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). The Enola Gay (/?ˈno?l?/) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets.