This particular Superfortress had been designed as a Model B-29-45-M0. She was one of 536 Boeing-designed B-29s to be assembled by the Omaha plant, and one of four thousand Superfortresses to be built and delivered by Boeing, Martin, and other companies for On May 18, 1945, the Martin Aircraft factory in Omaha, Nebraska, delivered aircraft
New Superfortresses would have to be acquired and modified for the task. The B-29s in which the 509th trained were not yet those they would need to carry out their mission. Every second gained meant added distance from the blast and greater safety for aircraft and crew the Army Air Forces had no intention of making If the B-29 could gain a few thousand feet of added altitude, that wouldĪdd time to the forty or forty-five seconds for the bomb to fall to its detonation height. Tibbets and his crew would enter a hairpin turn immediately after releasing the bomb and beat a retreat to gain added distance from the point of explosion. Of 30,000 feet with that bomb in her belly was anyone's guess.Īltitude was important. Whether she would be able to struggle to an altitude But he knew it was going to be hard even to get the loaded Superfortress off the ground. For this he had to devise the means and train his crews to drop this incredibly powerful bomb and escape before its terrible blast could consume them.įor months, he did not know when the bomb would be ready or exactly how much it would weigh. Tibbets's top secret mission was to forge a group to deliver an atomic bomb to Japan and survive.
If thwarted nevertheless, he had direct access to Groves and if need be, to H. If Tibbets ran into any bureaucratic problems, he needed only to mention theĬode word "Silverplate," which revealed nothing about the group's mission, but magically cut through red tape. These provided the required self-sufficiency and with it, the urgently demanded secrecy. Units, and his own set of troop transport aircraft and military police. Tibbets was to control his own maintenance, engineering, ordnance, medical, radiological, and technical Groves provided Tibbets with fifteen Boeing Superfortresses and eighteen hundred men, and ordered him to shape them into a self-contained, secret outfit. He chose twenty-nine-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets to assemble and command the group. The 509th Composite Group had been created in September 1944 when Major General Leslie Groves, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project to construct the atomic bomb, foresaw the need for a dedicated corps of men trained to drop the bomb on targets in Prominently featured in that gallery would be the restored fifty-six-foot-longįorward fuselage of the aircraft, memorabilia donated by the men of the 509th, and a video-film the museum had produced, in which crew members of the Enola Gay and her sister ship Bockscar recalled their missions. But the Enola Gay and the men of the 509th had, some would argue, actually ended the war all by themselves.įifteen years later, largely inspired by these veterans' visit that day, the National Air and Space Museum would be preparing an exhibition on the mission of the Enola Gay. OthersĬould also claim to have contributed. In 1945, the Enola Gay and the men who were now visiting her had ended the war. When they had last seen her, she was a proud, brilliantly shiny, beautifully sleek B-29 Superfortress-the most powerful bomber the Army Air Forces flew in World War II. Garber Restoration, Preservation, and Storage Facility. With great expectations, they drove to Silver Hill, in Suitland, Maryland, just outside Washington's city limits, where the National AirĪnd Space Museum has its Paul E. They would be able to visit their beloved Enola Gay. On this occasion they also had an additional attraction. At five-year intervals in the previous thirty-five years they had met in other cities to reminisce and exchange news.
Late in the summer of 1980 a small band of men approaching retirement age convened in Washington.