"320th Troop Carrier Squadron, the 390th Air Service Group, the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron, the 1027th Air Materiel Squadron, the 1395th Military Police Company, and the First Ordnance Squadron (in charge of handling the atomic bombs). On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb to be used in combat was dropped by a B-29 Superfortress bomber, the ""Enola Gay"", over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. The thirteen-hour mission to Hiroshima under the command of famous pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets, began at 0245 Tinian time. By the time the"
"Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped an atomic bomb (code-named Little Boy by the U.S.) on the city of Hiroshima in southwest Honshū. Throughout the day, confused reports reached Tokyo that Hiroshima had been the target of an air raid, which had leveled the city with a ""blinding flash and violent blast"". Later that day, they received U.S. President Truman's broadcast announcing the first use of an atomic bomb, and promising: The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it"
"on 23 July 1945. It was dropped over the sea near Tinian in order to test the radar altimeter by the B-29 later known as ""Big Stink"", piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, the commander of the 509th Composite Group. Two more drop tests over the sea were made on 24 and 25 July, using the L-2 and L-5 units in order to test all components. Tibbets was the pilot for both missions, but this time the bomber used was the one subsequently known as ""Jabit"". L-6 was used as a dress rehearsal on 29 July. The B-29 ""Next Objective"","
"atomic bomb as soon as weather would permit. The Japanese cities of Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki were potential targets. President Harry S. Truman gave his final go-ahead from the Potsdam Conference on 31 July. On 6 August the atomic attack began with a flight of three special reconnaissance F-13As (RB-29s) which took off to report the weather over the primary and secondary targets. Col. Tibbets followed in his B-29 aircraft, ""Enola Gay"", an hour later, accompanied by two other B-29s which would observe the drop. While on the way to Japan, Major Claude Eatherly, flying ""Straight Flush"", radioed that"
"as his co-pilot. Norstad backed down, and the mission was successfully flown at . When General Henry H. ""Hap"" Arnold, the Chief of United States Army Air Forces, requested an experienced bombardment pilot to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, Doolittle recommended Tibbets. Tibbets returned to the United States in February 1943. At the time, the B-29 program was beset by a host of technical problems, and the chief test pilot, Edmund T. Allen, had been killed in a crash of the prototype aircraft. Working with the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas, Tibbets test-flew the B-29"
"an atomic weapon by airplane against targets in Germany and Japan, then command it in combat. Because the organization developed by Tibbets was self-sustained, with flying squadrons of both Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers and transport aircraft, the group was designated as a ""composite"" rather than a ""bombardment"" unit. On 8 September, working with Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr.'s Manhattan Project, Tibbets selected Wendover for his training base over Great Bend Army Air Field, Kansas, and Mountain Home Army Airfield, Idaho, because of its remoteness. On 14 September 1944, the 393d Bombardment Squadron arrived at Wendover from its former base"
"war industries. Although less publicly appreciated, the mining of Japanese ports and shipping routes (Operation Starvation) carried out by B-29s from April 1945 reduced Japan's ability to support its population and move its troops. Perhaps the most famous B-29s were the sixty-five examples of the Silverplate series, which were modified to drop atomic bombs. They were also stripped of all guns, except the tail ones, in order to have a lighter plane. The Silverplate aircraft were handpicked by Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. Tibbets for the mission, straight off the assembly line at the Omaha plant that was to become Offutt"
"the August 1943, raid on the Romanian oil refineries in Ploiești, chose Colonel Paul Tibbets to lead the 509th Composite Group, asking him to organize and lead a combat force to deliver a new type of explosive device that is so powerful that its full potential was unknown. Tibbets did so, and was the commander and pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that delivered the first atomic bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. The Enola Gay's navigator on the mission was Captain Theodore ""Dutch"" Van Kirk, also a native of Northumberland, who was among the"
"of its members to Tinian to supervise the assembly, loading, and dropping of the bombs under the administrative title of 1st Technical Services Detachment, Miscellaneous War Department Group. On 5 August 1945, Tibbets formally named his B-29 ""Enola Gay"" after his mother. ""Enola Gay"" had been personally selected by him while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. Martin Company plant in Bellevue, Nebraska. The regularly assigned aircraft commander, Robert A. Lewis, was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of"
"who donated his collection of military documents and objects to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. Thomas Ferebee Thomas Wilson Ferebee (November 9, 1918 – March 16, 2000) was the bombardier aboard the B-29 Superfortress, ""Enola Gay"", which dropped the atomic bomb, ""Little Boy"", on Hiroshima in 1945. Thomas Wilson Ferebee was born on a farm outside Mocksville, North Carolina, as the third of eleven children. In 1935, at age 17, he attended Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, NC. Talented in athletics since childhood, he earned awards in track, basketball, and football. After training for a small position"
"go on to pilot the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II. In 1926 or 1927, Davis constructed the first permanent aircraft hangar at Candler Field, a converted auto speedway near Atlanta, which eventually became Atlanta Municipal Airfield in 1946. (The Doug Davis hangar was recreated in early 2015 at the Candler Field Museum.) He set up an aviation school there, the Douglas Davis Flying Service. He also ran a charter service between Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama, before selling it to Texas Air Transport in 1929. Georgia Resolution HR 1445 states"
"weapons from B-29 bombers. Given Tibbets and two other names by General Arnold, General Ent replied without hesitation, ""Paul Tibbets is the man to do it."" In October 1944, Ent was seriously injured in the crash of a B-25 on takeoff at the Fort Worth Army Airfield, Texas. Paralyzed from the waist down he learned to walk again using braces. He retired for ""disability in line of duty"" in 1946, with the rank of major general. He died at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado, on March 5, 1948. His foreign decorations included: In 1951, an Air Force base opened"
"nuclear bomb. Only two of the 22 museum aircraft are outside the United States, one is the B-29A ""It's Hawg Wild"" in the American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in the United Kingdom, the other at the KAI Aerospace Museum in Sachon, South Korea. B-29 accidents and incidents include a crash of the plane near Clovis, New Mexico, on Friday evening, 10 November 1944 wherein all 15 members of the crew were killed; the 1948 Waycross B-29 crash, which resulted in the ""United States v. Reynolds"" lawsuit regarding State Secrets Privilege; the 1948 Lake Mead Boeing B-29"
"In December 1944 the USAAF's 509th Composite Group was formed under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets to deliver these weapons once they were complete; it deployed to Tinian during May and June 1945. The ""Trinity"" test of the first nuclear bomb was successfully conducted on 16 July. Four days later the 509th Composite Group's modified ""Silverplate"" B-29s began flying practice raids against Japanese cities, each armed with a single high-explosive ""pumpkin"" bomb; further practice missions took place on 24, 26 and 29 July. Japanese fighters did not attempt to intercept these aircraft, and their bombing altitude of was beyond"
"declaration also stated that if Japan did not surrender, it would be faced with ""prompt and utter destruction"", a process which was already underway with the incendiary bombing raids destroying 40% of targeted cities, and by naval warfare isolating and starving Japan of imported food. The Japanese government ignored (""mokusatsu"") this ultimatum, thus signalling that they were not going to surrender. In the wake of this rejection, Stimson and George Marshall (the Army chief of staff) and Hap Arnold (head of the Army Air Forces) set the atomic bombing in motion. On 6 August 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay"
"Storage included not only preserving planes for future use but also transferring some of the stored planes to other Air Force units for their use. Corrosion control crews removed, cleaned and treated the turrets in all of the B-29s. The aircraft were ""cocooned"" to seal out the elements from the interior, and the aircraft were kept in flyable reserve storage. Best known of all the aircraft stored at Pyote was the B-29 Enola Gay, from which the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Arriving at Pyote on 12 January 1952, the ownership of the aircraft was transferred to the"
"B-29s were used to experiment with aerial refueling and re-designated as KB-29s. Perhaps the most important tests were conducted by the XB-29G; it carried prototype jet engines in its bomb bay, and lowered them into the air stream to conduct measurements. Twenty-two B-29s are preserved at various museums worldwide, including two flying examples; ""FIFI"", which belongs to the Commemorative Air Force, and ""Doc"", which belongs to Doc's Friends. Doc made its first flight in 60 years from Wichita, Kansas, on 17 July 2016. There are also four complete airframes either in storage or under restoration, eight partial airframes in storage"
"the B-29s so that the aircraft would be lighter and use less fuel. On the night of 9–10 March, 1945, 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of . The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries was also dropped: the M-47 was a jelled-gasoline and"
"codename eventually came to identify the training and operational aspects of the program as well. Arnold selected Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets, an officer with a distinguished combat record in Europe and North Africa, who had expert knowledge of the B-29 as one of its test pilots, to form and train a group to deliver atomic bombs. Tibbets chose the Wendover over Great Bend, Kansas, and Mountain Home, Idaho, as the location for his training program. It was remote, which was good for secrecy and security, but within reasonable distance by air from the Manhattan Project's Site Y, at Los Alamos,"
"the L-11 and projectile were dropped off at Tinian on 26 July 1945. On 5 August 1945, during preparation for the first atomic mission, Tibbets assumed command of the aircraft and named it after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets, who, in turn, had been named for the heroine of a novel. When it came to selecting a name for the plane, Tibbets later recalled that: The name was painted on the aircraft on 5 August by Allan L. Karl, an enlisted man in the 509th. Regularly-assigned aircraft commander Robert Lewis was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important"
"carried the name and original nose art of ""Laggin' Dragon"" on their nosewheel doors while based at Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire, in the 1970s and 1980s. Laggin' Dragon Laggin' Dragon was the name of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress (B-29-50-MO, 44-86347 Victor number 95) configured to carry the atomic bomb in World War II. ""Laggin' Dragon"" was the last of the fifteen Silverplate B-29s delivered to the 509th Composite Group for use in the atomic bomb operation. Built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft plant at Omaha, Nebraska, it was accepted by the USAAF on June 15, 1945, after"
"Straight Flush Straight Flush was the name of a B-29 Superfortress (B-29-36-MO 44-27301, Victor number 85) that participated in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group, it was used as a weather reconnaissance plane and flew over the city before the attack to determine if conditions were favorable for a visual drop. Pilot Claude Eatherly later expressed remorse, received psychiatric hospitalization, and engaged in anti-nuclear activism, which may be the origin of urban legends that Eatherly, ""Enola Gay"" pilot Paul Tibbets, or other members of the two planes'"
"received four Navy Crosses). One World War II Distinguished Service Cross recipient, Raymond Harvey, would earn the Medal of Honor in the Korean War. General Paul W. Tibbets, commander of the 509th Composite Group (509 CG), was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General Spaatz for piloting the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress plane which dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. In the Korean War, there were just over 800 awards, of which over 300 were posthumous. Lloyd L. ""Scooter"" Burke, a lieutenant with the 1st Cavalry Division, Benjamin F. Wilson, a master sergeant with the 7th Infantry Division,"
"which it described as an ""extraordinary callousness toward the victims, indifference to the deep divisions among American citizens about the propriety of these actions, and disregard for the feelings of most of the world's peoples"". It attracted signatures from notable figures including historian Gar Alperovitz, social critic Noam Chomsky, whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg, physicist Joseph Rotblat, writer Kurt Vonnegut, producer Norman Lear, actor Martin Sheen and filmmaker Oliver Stone. Enola Gay The Enola Gay () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the"
"missions. The aircraft used for these practice missions were Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers similar to the ones that flew the first atomic missions over Japan in 1945. The Pioneers and the 509th Bombardment Group (successor to the 509th Composite Group that flew the 1945 missions) flew the practice missions from Kirtland AFB to Wendover, Utah. The 509th was stationed at Walker Air Force Base near Roswell, New Mexico. On April 12, 1950, a B-29 from the 509th Bombardment Group crashed at Sandia Base shortly after takeoff. Thirteen crewmen were killed. The military imposed strict security over the crash site. The"
"already knew about it from spies. With the authorization to use the bomb against Japan already given, no alternatives were considered after the Japanese rejection of the Potsdam Declaration. On 6 August 1945, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress (""Enola Gay"") of the 393d Bombardment Squadron, piloted by Tibbets, lifted off from North Field, and Little Boy in its bomb bay. Hiroshima, the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division and a port of embarkation, was the primary target of the mission, with Kokura and Nagasaki as alternatives. With Farrell's permission, Parsons, the weaponeer in charge of the mission, completed"
"Kermit Beahan Kermit K. Beahan (August 9, 1918 – March 9, 1989) was a career officer in the United States Air Force and its predecessor United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He was the bombardier on the crew flying the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ""Bockscar"" on August 9, 1945 (his 27th birthday), that dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. He also participated in the first atomic mission that bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Flying as part of the crew of ""The Great Artiste"" which was a reference to him, purportedly because he could ""hit a"
"Up An' Atom Up An' Atom was the name of a B-29 Superfortress (B-29-36-MO 44-27304, Victor number 88) configured during World War II in the Silverplate project to carry an atomic bomb. Assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group, it was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Omaha, Nebraska, accepted by the Army Air Forces on April 3, 1945, and flown to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, by its assigned crew B-10 (Capt. George W. Marquardt, Aircraft Commander). It departed Wendover for North Field, Tinian on June 11 and arrived on June 17. It was"
"by Col. Paul Tibbets. It is the first use of atomic weapons in combat. (Atomic bombing of Hiroshima) August 8, 1945 The Soviet Union declares war on Japan against the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. August 9, 1945 Second, and more powerful plutonium implosion atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki from a different ""Silverplate"" B-29 named ""Bockscar"", flown by Maj. Charles Sweeney (Atomic bombing of Nagasaki) August 9, 1945 Soviet Armies launch the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. August 10, 1945 The 38th Parallel is set as the delineation between the Soviet and US occupation zones in Korea. August 14, 1945"
"Thomas Ferebee Thomas Wilson Ferebee (November 9, 1918 – March 16, 2000) was the bombardier aboard the B-29 Superfortress, ""Enola Gay"", which dropped the atomic bomb, ""Little Boy"", on Hiroshima in 1945. Thomas Wilson Ferebee was born on a farm outside Mocksville, North Carolina, as the third of eleven children. In 1935, at age 17, he attended Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, NC. Talented in athletics since childhood, he earned awards in track, basketball, and football. After training for a small position with the Boston Red Sox and not making the team, he joined the Army. A knee injury kept"
"After flying 43 combat missions, he became the assistant for bomber operations on the staff of the Twelfth Air Force. Tibbets returned to the United States in February 1943 to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. In September 1944, he was appointed the commander of the 509th Composite Group, which would conduct the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, he participated in the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946, and was involved in the development of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet in the early 1950s. He commanded the 308th Bombardment Wing and"
"was abandoned. The U.S. Navy acquired four B-29-BWs from the U.S. Army Air Forces on March 14, 1947. These aircraft were modified for long-range patrol missions and given the designation P2B-1S with Navy Bureau Numbers (BuNo) 84028, 84029, 84030 and 84031. BuNo 84029, previously AAF Ser. No. 45-21787, later went through modifications to carry the Navy's Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket high-speed rocket-powered research aircraft. The bomb bay was modified to carry the Skyrocket II under the belly and dropped for supersonic speed testing. The first Skyrocket test flight occurred on September 8, 1950 with test pilot William B. Bridgeman, and George"
"On October 12, 1944 the first B-29 ""Joltin Josie The Pacific Pioneer"" piloted by Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell commanding General of XXI Bomber Command and copiloted by Major Jack J Catton of the 873d Bombardment Squadron arrived at Isley Field. By November 22, over 100 B-29s were at Isley. The XXI Bomber Command was assigned the task of destroying the aircraft industry of Japan in a series of high-altitude, daylight precision attacks. After several months of disappointing high level bombing attacks from Isley (and the other Twentieth Air Force airfields on Guam and Tinian), General Curtis LeMay, Commander of"