On permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, the Enola Gay was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by the U.S. Designed by Boeing, the strategic bomber was one of the largest flown during the war, the bloodiest conflict in human history. With a propeller diameter of 16 feet, seven inches, the aircraft’s four 18-cylinder 2,200-horsepower Wright R-3350 fuel-injected radial engines were powerful enough to carry 16,000 pounds of bombs while cruising at 235 miles per hour at an altitude of 30,000 feet. The silvery streamlined plane was designed with a tubular fuselage, three pressurized cabins, tricycle landing gear, modern avionics and an analog computer-controlled weapons system that allowed one gunner to direct fire from four remote machine-gun turrets. It was unlike any other bomber-indeed, any propeller-driven aircraft-of World War II. At the apex of aviation technology at the time, the aircraft was a B-29 Superfortress, one of a few dozen that were specially modified for the express purpose of delivering atomic weapons. It was the fire.”Ī single airplane delivered the new weapon of mass destruction-the Enola Gay. It was not primarily radiation that killed and burned the people of Hiroshima, like I think many people assume. “The bomb ignited a massive fire all over the city instantly that led to a classic firestorm, where this chimney of heat is sucking in air from around the edges and increasing the intensity of the fire. “The primary cause of death in Hiroshima that day was fire,” says Rhodes. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images All told, at least 100,000 people died from the explosion and resulting firestorm that leveled a four-square-mile section of Hiroshima.Īll told, at least 100,000 people died from the explosion and resulting firestorm that leveled a four-square-mile section of Hiroshima. Some were vaporized by the initial blast others were charred beyond recognition by the incredible heat. Thousands of Japanese died immediately following the detonation of Little Boy, the nickname of that first atomic bomb. Then there was a flush of neutrons from the fireball that followed, and that was the primary killing mechanism.” “It was like a gigantic sunburn over the entire area. “There was a 10,000-degree flash of intense light,” says historian Richard Rhodes, who received the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Seventy-five years ago, on August 6, 1945, the world entered the nuclear age with the detonation of the first atomic bomb in warfare over Hiroshima, Japan. The next, a brilliant flash of light blinded everyone and altered the course of history. One moment, it was a warm summer’s day with a few clouds in the sky.
“I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world - I'd like to see them all abolished,” Van Kirk said.Everything changed in an instant. The plane’s navigator and last surviving member of the crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died last week at the age of 93.īefore his death, Van Kirk told the Associated Press that while the mission went perfectly, and that he believed the bombing which killed some 140,000 people actually saved lives in the long run, he felt slightly conflicted. Tibbets, a 30-year-old colonel at the time of the bombing, named the bomber after his mother. Inside the window-covered nose of the plane, you can see where pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee sat during Special Mission No.
The plane was further modified to carry the atomic bomb - dubbed “Little Boy” - which was dropped from the front bomb bay onto the heart of Hiroshima during the mission. (Associated Press)At the time of its mission, the Enola Gay was among the most sophisticated, propeller-driven bombers in the sky during the Second World War, according to the Smithsonian. Paul Tibbets named the modified Boeing B-29 bomber used in Special Mission No.