At 8:09, the crew of the Enola Gay could see the city appear below and received a message indicating that the weather was good over Hiroshima. Radio stations broadcast another warning for people to take shelter, but many ignored it. By 8:00, Japanese radar again detected B-29s heading toward the city. Enola Gay's Flight PathĪt 7:25, the Enola Gay was cruising over Hiroshima at 26,000 feet. Paul W Tibbets - On August 6, 1945, as the Enola Gay approached the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The people began their daily work and thought the danger had passed. Get this from a library Return of the Enola Gay. Soon afterward, a weather plane circled over the city, but there was no sign of bombers. By 7:00, the Japanese radar net detected aircraft heading toward Japan, and the alert was broadcast throughout the Hiroshima area. Tibbets announced to the crew that the plane was carrying the world's first atomic bomb. Morris Jeppson, finished the assembly and armed the bomb in the bomb bay after takeoff.Īfter 6:00, the bomb was fully armed on board the Enola Gay. If that happened to the Enola Gay, the bomb might explode and wipe out half the island. On August 6, 1945, Paul Tibbets commanded the specially modified B-29 Enola Gay on the mission to drop the first atomic bomb on Imperial Japan, thus hastening. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. Some heavily loaded B-29s had crashed on takeoff from Tinian. The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named for Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who selected the aircraft while it was still on the assembly line. Deak Parsons, was concerned about taking off with Little Boy fully assembled and live. Colonel Paul Tibbets waves from the Enola Gay
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Measuring over 10 feet (3 meters) long and almost 30 inches (75 centimeters) across, it weighed close to 5 tons (4.5 tonnes) and had the explosive force of 20,000 tons (18,000 tonnes) of TNT.
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The four-engine plane, followed by two observation planes carrying cameras and scientific instruments, was one of seven making the trip to Hiroshima, but only the Enola Gay was carrying a bomb - a bomb that was expected to knock out almost everything within a 3-mile (5-kilometer) area. This mission was piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, commanding officer of the 509th Composite Group, who named the bomber after his mother. on August 6, 1945, a modified American B-29 Superfortress bomber named the Enola Gay left the island of Tinian for Hiroshima, Japan.