The exhibition text summarized the history and development of the Boeing B-29 fleet used in bombing raids against Japan.Īnother portion of the exhibit detailed the painstaking efforts of Smithsonian aircraft restoration specialists who had spent more than a decade restoring parts of the Enola Gay for this exhibition. The components on display included two engines, the vertical stabilizer, an aileron, propellers, and the forward fuselage that contains the bomb bay.Ī video presentation about the Enola Gay's mission included interviews with the crew before and after the mission including mission pilot Col. It contained several major components of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber used in the atomic mission that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. It’s so much easier to silence those voices and remember how glorious Captain Tibbitts was flying the Enola Gay.This past exhibition, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, told the story of the role of the Enola Gay in securing Japanese surrender. What could have those children and families become without the Enola Gay?ġ945 seems so long ago in our sordid historic past that we can ignore the silent voices of victims who will never be heard. The Little Boy was the biggest bully of all not allowing anyone the chance to defend themselves taking so many dreams away. Clearly she loved the Little Boy more than me. I wonder why my mother didn’t take me and change her course leaving the Little Boy behind.
The moral and compassionate thing to do would have not let innocent lives suffer. However, I should never have suffered in this way.Īt anytime the Enola Gay could have changed course and turned around. Of course, she has to take responsibility for her own actions but she is also a victim. They made sure they wrote to her medical team to vigorously defend their position and firmly place any blame for her mental illness down to her life choices. In my family the abusers firmly placed my sister’s failings directly at her door and, quite publicly. My father has access to her children (one under 16) and his great grandchild. One of her children I particularly worry about. I look at her children who are also victims. I look at my sister who was abused and is now an abuser in her own right. She was the mothership or the vessel that carried me to something so devastating which has had a lifetime impact affecting generations. My mother representing the Enola Gay and my father the “Little Boy”. I wonder if Enola Gay was proud of her son when he dropped the devastating bomb on millions of innocent victims?Ĭlearly I cannot analyse the dynamics of the Tibbitts family but the more I think about the Enola Gay I can see parallels with my own family. I would assume this gesture would be made as a proud dedication to her and her memory. I wonder what he was thinking when he named the Enola Gay after his mother. I’ve seen a picture of Captain Tibbitts, sat proudly, taken in the cockpit of the Enola Gay before the devastating bomb drop. The effects of radiation would impact generations to come. Those that did survive had catastrophic life changing injuries, including severe burns. The initial impact of the bomb wiped out or burnt 70 percent of the buildings, killed 74,000 people (the rest would die later), killed 90 percent of doctors and nurses and 42 of the 45 local hospitals were unusable. Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb, 'Little Boy,' was dropped at 8:15 a.m. After the war, the Enola Gay returned to the United States, where it was operated from Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. In the early-morning hours, the cloud cover was minimal over Hiroshima, the primary target. The small group included a standby, a photo plane and one with scientific instruments. The bomb, which was the first atomic bomb, killed over 100,000 innocent men, women and children and had devastating effects which can still be witnessed today. 6, 1945, it was one of seven B-29s that took off under cover of night. Later that year it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and spent many years parked at air bases exposed to the weather and souvenir hunters, before. The bomber was flown by Captain Tibbitts who named the bomber after his mother Enola Gay Tibbitts. Enola Gay was the name of the aeroplane that carried the “Little Boy” to its destination of Hiroshima in August 1945.