Enola Gay

Enola Gay was a boeing b-29 Superfortress bomber flown by Paul Tibbets during WW2. Enola Gay was picked out by Paul Tibbets in May 1945 while it was still on the assembly line. The plane is most famous for dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and being the first plane to drop an atomic bomb. Right before the Hiroshima mission began Tibbets named the plane Enola Gay after his mom Enola Gay Tibbets, "Enola Gay" was later painted on the nose of the plane right before he took off for the Hiroshima mission. The plane flew from Titian to Hiroshima (a six hour flight) on August 6 1945 planning to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and having Kokura and Nagasaki as backup plans. The bombing went just as planned and dropped the bomb from 31,000 ft on Hiroshima at 8:15. After, Paul Tibbets flew back to the base in Tinian and ended the flight safely. Around 75,000 people were killed by the bomb while 70,000 were injured and 70% of Hiroshimas buildings were completely destroyed. Enola Gay also participated in the bombing of Nagasaki following the bombing of Hiroshima. Although Enola and Paul didn't carry the bomb on the mission, he was the weather rennisance for the mission and first saw that it was not safe to bomb Kokura and insisted to wait until the smoke from the bombing of Yawata cleared out. Paul Tibbets passed away on November 1st, 2007 at the age of 92. Enola Gay restoration started in 1984 and was fully completed in 200. Enola Gay is currently in Washington Dulles International  Airport in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.   

sources: http://www.japanfocus.org/data/tibbets.enola.jpg
              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay
              http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/EnolaGay/EnolaGay.html
              http://gtrebekah.edublogs.org/files/2012/02/bombing-1m98zjr.jpg