In 1949, the Smithsonian Institution assumed control of the plane, and it is now part of the Air and Space Museum. Ferebee, then 26 and a veteran of 64 combat. from Tinian Island in the western Pacific. The 12-man crew aboard the B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off for Hiroshima at 2 a.m. Army Air Corps bombardier and Mocksville native, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On August 30, 1946, the Enola Gay was placed in storage and never flew another combat mission. On August 6, 1945, Major Thomas Wilson Ferebee, a U.S. Martin Company delivered the plane to the military on May 18, 1945. The United States military kept the Enola Gay in use for only a short period of time. Tibbets named the plane after his mother. Captain Paul Tibbets, the Enola Gay's pilot, personally selected this plane to drop the atomic bomb. The plane had a 2,200-horsepower engine, with a maximum speed of 360 miles per hour and a range of 3,250 miles. Shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug.
The Enola Gay before the bombing mission. Martin Company assembled it in Omaha, Nebraska, in early 1945. Enola Gay Crew Recalled First Use of Atomic Bomb. Boeing Aircraft Company manufactured the plane, and the Glenn L. This atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, along with a second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, prompted the Japanese government to surrender, bringing World War II to an end.
On August 6, 1945, the crew of the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Ever since men have been able to devise vessels to carry them onto the ocean and out of sight of land, he had given a good deal of thought.
