At the time of the Hiroshima bombing, an average of 5,000 were still dying each week. More than 100,000 American soldiers, sailors and Marines had already been killed in the Pacific since Japan’s attack on the U.S. (Matt McLain/The Washington Post) A shortened war, a dreadful cost This week, commemorations are scheduled across the country, with socially distanced candlelight vigils and the tolling of bells, and because of the covid-19, ceremonies and remembrances have moved online. It would be the start of a frightful era of weapons that could defy control and menace civilization.īut as “Dimples Eight Two” picked up speed that morning, its mission was born of its time: deliver a blow that the United States hoped might finally end the global butchery of World War II. Tens of thousands more would die the same way at Nagasaki a few days later, and the world would subsequently be hearing about megatons, mutual assured destruction, proliferation, nuclear winter, meltdowns and dirty bombs. It was an important enemy military site with a wartime population about 280,000, according to the historians Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts.Īlmost half of them were about to be incinerated, crushed, and irradiated by the crude atomic weapon named “Little Boy” that the Enola Gay carried. (AP)įifteen hundred miles to the north-northwest, under a waning crescent moon, lay a 400-year-old Japanese city most Americans probably had never heard of but whose name was about to be etched into the pages of history. Shumard, assistant engineer and Staff Sgt. Jacob Besser, radar countermeasures officer. Tibbets, 509th Composite Group commanding officer and pilot Capt. John Porter, ground maintenance officer Capt. For a more in depth look at this historic event, I recommend "Day One", by Peter Wyden, and "The Return of The Enola Gay" by General Paul Tibbets.This undated photo includes most members of 12-man crew of the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima posing in the Mariana Islands in 1945 during World War II. As a former military officer, I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting a brief but accurate portayal of the events that lead up to the decision to bomb Japan and bring an end to WW-2. Paul Tibbets and his crews are nothing short of American war heroes, whose bravery and patriotism should never be forgatten. It may have cost another couple of hundred thousand lives to invade mainland Japan. While liberals of the modern world call Paul Tibbets a war criminal, They also did not live through the war that killed over five hundred thousand Americans. With the help of rare photogrpahs, Polmar gives the novice reader an educational overview of the building of the worlds first atomic bombs that were destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Military historian and author Norm Polmar, has written a wonderful short and concise photographic history of the manhattan project and its chief principal Gen Paul Tibbets and the crew of the most famous B-29 bomber of them all, the "Enola Gay".
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After nearly two decades of restoration, the Enola Gay will be one of the highlights of the museum’s new Udvar-Hazy Center, which is scheduled to open at Dulles International Airport on December 15, 2003. This book tells the story of the Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 program, and the combat operations of the B-29 type. The original, controversial exhibit script was changed, and the final exhibition attracted some 4 million visitors, testifying to the enduring interest in the aircraft and its mission. The aircraft was the primary artifact in an exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum from 1995 to 1998. The Japanese government, which had been preparing a bloody defense against an invasion, surrendered six days later. Three days later, another B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The “Little Boy” bomb exploded with the force of 12.5 kilotons of TNT, nearly destroying the city. The world entered the atomic age in August 1945, when the B-29 Superfortress nicknamed Enola Gay flew some 1,500 miles from the island of Tinian and dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.