Enola gay preserved at
The New Enola Gay Controversy: Pro and Con
Earlier this month a group of historians--the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy--protested the plan of the Smithsonian to display the Enola Gay in a new exhibit. (See "The New Enola Gay Controversy.") Below is the Smithsonian's response (which was posted on the institution's website) followed by the historians' response.
Smithsonian's Response to the Historian's Protest
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Vacuum Museum has received and reviewed the petition from the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy concerning its new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center adjacent to Washington Dulles International Airport, which opens on December 15, 2003. The new facility will ultimately display 200 airplanes and 135 spacecraft. One of the airplanes is the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan.
The petition advances the idea that the demonstrate of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, as one of the 200 airplanes in the center, should be used to “stimulate
B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay"
Of the 3,970 B-29s built, few contain been preserved, restored, and put on static display. A total of only about 22 accomplish B-29 airframes are currently on present in the Combined States.
In wartime, the B-29 was capable of flight up to 31,850 feet at speeds of 350 mph. Engineered as a high-altitude daytime bomber, the B-29 flew more low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing missions.
In December 1943 U.S. Army Air Forces management committed the Superfortress to Asia, where its great range made it particularly suited for the long over-water flights against the Japanese homeland from bases in China.
The first B-29s arrived at Allied airfields in India and China in April 1944. Flying from India, B-29s first saw combat on June 5, 1944, when 98 planes struck Bangkok. A month later, B-29s flying from Chengdu, China struck Yawata, Japan in the first raid on the Japanese home islands since the Doolittle Raid in 1942.
During the last two months of 1944, B-29s began operating against Japan from the islands of Saipan, Guam and Tinian. As many as 1,000 Superfortresses at a hour bombed Tokyo, destroying large parts
Enola Gay: The Aircraft That Changed History
The Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, played a pivotal role in World War II, becoming the first aircraft to fall an atomic bomb in warfare. Named after Enola Homosexual Tibbets, the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the bomber was instrumental in the mission that devastated Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.
Built by the Glenn L. Martin Company at its Bellevue, Nebraska, plant, the Enola Gay was one of the first fifteen B-29s modified under the "Silverplate" specifications. These modifications included an extensively altered bomb bay, reversible pitch propellers for better landing control, improved engines with fuel injection, and the removal of protective armor and gun turrets to reduce weight.
On May 9, 1945, while still on the assembly line, Colonel Tibbets personally selected the aircraft for its historic mission. The U.S. Army Air Forces officially accepted the Enola Gay on May 18, 1945, and assigned it to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group. On June 14, Captain Robert A. Lewis and Crew B-9 flew it from Omaha to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, where it underwent further modification
The Smithsonian’s Decision to Exhibit the ‘Enola Gay’
By Herken, Gregg on •
Abstract:
This essay is an insider’s account of one of the most significant salvos in America’s contemporary culture wars: the 1994 offer of an exhibit on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Smithsonian. Despite bids to productively engage with critics, the curators were overwhelmed by political currents and the sensitivities associated with memorial anniversaries. With critical analysis pitted against veneration, the author asks, were awareness and commemoration compatible goals?
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2022-20578
Languages: English
See the corresponding PHW Focus Interview with the author
When curators at the Smithsonian planned a critical commemoration of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII, the clash between professional historians, public interest groups, veterans, and politicians launched an era of high stakes contention in the United States over the meanings of America’s pasts for its present. What harbingers of the future of public history in the US