B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay  

It was crucial in compelling Japan to surrender in World War II. The B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy”, the first atomic bomb used in war, in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. It was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the pilot’s mother. The B-29 Superfortress, a four-engine heavy bomber propeller aircraft, was the single most complicated and expensive weapon produced by the United States during World War II. Almost 4,000 were built for combat including Enola Gay. 

The Enola Gay was built at Glen L. Martin Aircraft Factory in Nebraska. It was taken in by the US Army Air Force as one of 15 "special mission" B-29s in June,1945. The aircrafts designated for the highly secret 509th Composite Group were outfitted with special engines and propellers and faster-acting pneumatic bomb bay doors. B-29s also represented the first successful large-scale use of pressurized crew compartments. The Enola Gay also participated in several flight training and live bombing practice missions in the Marianas in June,1945. 

Weaponry:

• 12× .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns in remote controlled turrets
• 1× 20 mm M2 cannon in tail (removed shortly after put into service)
• 20,000 lb (9,000 kg) standard loadout, could be modified to externally carry two 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) T-14 'Earthquake' bombs 

Enola Gay (B-29-45-MO, serial number 44-86292 , victor number 82) was assigned to the USAAF's 393rd Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group. The bomber was one of 15 B-29s with the "Silverplate" modifications necessary to deliver nuclear weapons. Enola Gay was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company at its Omaha, Nebraska, plant at what is now known as Offutt Air Force Base and was personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, on 9 May 1945 while still on the assembly line. This would be the B-29 that he would use to fly the atomic bomb mission. 

Enola Gay in its 6th BG livery, victor number 82 visible on fuselage just forward of the tail finThe aircraft was accepted by the USAAF on 18 May 1945, and assigned to Crew B-9 (Captain Robert A. Lewis, aircraft commander), who flew the bomber from Omaha to the 509th's base at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah on 14 June 1945. Thirteen days later, the aircraft left Wendover for Guam, where it received a bomb bay modification, and flew to Tinian on 6 July. It was originally given the victor number "12," but on 1 August was given the circle R tail markings of the 6th Bomb Group as a security measure and had its victor changed to "82" to avoid misidentification with actual 6th BG aircraft. 

During July of that year, after the bomber flew eight training missions and two combat missions to drop pumpkin bombs on industrial targets at Kobe and Nagoya, Enola Gay was used on 31 July on a rehearsal flight for the actual mission. A "dummy" Little Boy assembly was dropped off Tinian.

On 5 August 1945, during preparation for the first atomic mission, pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets who assumed command of the aircraft, renamed the B-29 after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets (1893–1983), who, coincidentally, had been named for the heroine of a novel. According to Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, regularly assigned aircraft commander Robert Lewis was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of 6 August to see it painted with the now-famous nose art. Tibbets himself, interviewed on Tinian later that day by war correspondents, confessed that he was a bit embarrassed at having attached his mother's name to such a fateful mission. 

The Hiroshima mission had been described as tactically flawless, and Enola Gay returned safely to its base on Tinian to great fanfare on the base. The first atomic bombing was followed three days later by another B-29 (Bockscar) (piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney) which dropped a second nuclear weapon, "Fat Man", on Nagasaki. The Nagasaki mission, by contrast, had been described as tactically botched, although the mission had met its objectives. The crew encountered a number of problems in execution, and Bockscar had very little fuel by the time it had landed on Okinawa. On that mission, Enola Gay, flown by Crew B-10 (Capt. George Marquardt, aircraft commander, see Necessary Evil for crew details), was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura.