Enola gay pilot controversy
With Tibbets as commander and pilot, the Enola Gay took off from Tinian at 2:30 a.m. Honoring his mother, who had encouraged him to join the Air Force, Tibbets had the name Enola Gay painted on the nose of his selected B-29. “Deke” Parsons of the Los Alamos National Laboratories. The bomber crews were briefed by William S. Truman gave his approval to use the atomic bomb on Japan. In the spring of 1945, the group began to move quietly to Tinian Island in the Marianas Islands. On December 17,1944, orders were issued activating the 509th Composite Group, which eventually included more than 1,500 enlisted men and 200 officers. The squadron was told its mission would have an important effect on the war, but were given no other details. He had the squadron pilots train to drop a single large bomb from 30,000 feet and to perform a strange evasive maneuver in which they turned the planes 150 degrees while diving to gain speed. Tibbets took command of the 393d B-29 bombardment squadron at the Wend over Army Air Base on the Utah-Nevada border. The B-29 had a pressurized cabin and could cruise above 30,000 feet, beyond the reach of antiaircraft fire and most enemy fighters. To save weight, Tibbets requisitioned fifteen B-29′s without protective armor, turrets, or guns, except for the 20-millimeter tail cannon. It was armed with up to twelve 0.50-inch machine guns mounted in four turrets and the tail, and a 20-millimeter cannon mounted in the tail. Witha 141-footwingspananda99-foot fuselage, it filled half of a football field. Powered by four 2,200-horsepower engines, it stood three stories tall. The B-29 Super for tress was the first intercontinental bomber. Tibbets was told that if the bombs worked well, they might end the war. He was given the assignment to organize, equip, and train a unit to drop atomic bombs on Germany and Japan.
#Enola gay pilot controversy code#
In September, 1944, he was briefed on the Manhattan Project, the code name of the project to build the atomic bomb. As a test pilot, he helped bring the B-29 Superfortress into service. Air Force’s best bomber pilots, having flown twenty-five B-17 missions, including the first raid against occupied Europe and the first mission in support of the North African invasion.
![enola gay pilot controversy enola gay pilot controversy](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/uYoAAOSwDKNfExtx/s-l300.jpg)
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., was twenty-nine years old when he first heard of the atomic bomb. Significance: The Enola Gay dropped the first of the two atomic bombs ever used in combat, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II. Definition: The B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb to be used against a civilian population, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.