Work on restoring it – a project which spanned nearly twenty years – began in 1984. Little Boy exploded 1,900 feet (580 metres) above the city, killing tens of thousands of people and causing immense destruction.Įnola Gay remained in service until it was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1949.
Tibbets instructed a maintenance man to paint the name 'Enola Gay' on the aircraft's nose shortly before take-off on the Hiroshima mission.
Lieutenant Colonel Tibbets flew the plane to Hiroshima where its deadly payload, an atomic bomb called Little Boy, was dropped from the plane and exploded over the city on August 6, 1945.Įnola Gay was a four-engine heavy bomber that had undergone a number of modifications, including reinforcements to its bomb bay. The B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, was named after the mother of pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. It was named after the pilot's mother (Pronounced en-oh-lah gay)Īll the engineers were old and gay (Enola Gay) who worked on the Enola Gay bomber plane. Enola Gay – The B-29 bomber that was used by the United States to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
