B-29 'Enola Gay'

[Jimbuna]

DECLASSIFIED Photos of the "B-29 "Enola Gay" being loaded at Tinian Island:

http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Lo...Bomb_Guide.htm

Originally posted by Redrurh Dave on The Diecast Aviation Forum.

[TarJak]

Cool!

[Jimbuna]

Not much Health & Safety in those days

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Not much Health & Safety in those days

Considering that the test A-Bomb was held together with duct tape, I'd say H&S was non-existent at that point. Bedsides there was a war on.

[MH]

Interesting pictures.
Thnx.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Kptlt. Hellmut Neuerburg

Considering that the test A-Bomb was held together with duct tape, I'd say H&S was non-existent at that point. Bedsides there was a war on.

And a little "putty on your polar plate"...particularly love the rabid sentiment written on the bomb "a second kiss for Hirohito" by Rear Admiral W R Purnell no less http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Purnell Moral: Never interrupt a newly minted Admiral's golf game on Oahu, December 7 1941; payback will be HELL! "Purnell was the first proponent of the idea that two atomic attacks, one following quickly after the other, would be required to end the war. This was something that Groves and Purnell discussed a number of times. "I knew that with him...on the ground at Tinian," Groves wrote. "There would be no unnecessary delay in exploiting our success"..."Before Major Charles Sweeney (pilot of Bock's Kar) took off on the 2nd Nagasaki mission, Purnell took him aside and asked him if he knew how much the bomb cost. Sweeney did not know; Purnell told him it was about $2 billion. He then asked if Sweeney knew how much his aircraft was worth. This Sweeney did know; over half a million dollars. Purnell then told him: "I'd suggest you keep those relative values in mind for this mission." Rear(Vice) ADM Purnell: Oversight, undersight, and insight! Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Materiel.

[Stealhead]

Those "thin man" casings look a lot like Tiny Tim rockets wonder if they where used as the base desgin.

[fireftr18]

Cool pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[em2nought]

Ah, the good old days! Back when we were allowed to win wars.

[Stealhead]

The Enola Gay crew.
True heroes...

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

The Enola Gay crew.
True heroes...

Ok, I'll bite.

Why was the crew of the Enola Gay any more heroic than any other bomber crew (nuclear or otherwise)

Just being the first is not necessarily heroic.

The members of the 509th Composite Group suffered less loses than the other bomber groups fighting the war and they flew less combat missions (12 missions dropping 49 conventional bombs (pumpkins) and two nuclear ones.

They were good men who served well. But I just question the use of the phrase "true heroes".

I would think that the European bomber groups, facing incredible ground and air defense, where there was a very good chance they would not be coming back would be your "true heroes"..... and few people even know their names....

Originally Posted by Platapus

Ok, I'll bite.

Why was the crew of the Enola Gay any more heroic than any other bomber crew (nuclear or otherwise)...

Edit:
Ok, just throwing a smiley in might not suffice and is not really fair, so let me add some words.
I was being sarcastic when I called the E. Gay crew "true heroes", for they are not. Not at all.

Why? Because they executed an order they should not have.

Now, the following is easy to say, yet I stand by it and this reflects my honest opinion:
Dropping little boy on Hiroshima was a terrible act of mass murder - nothing else.
The official reason was "to end the war", yet after all it was a weapon test with some nice side effects like achieving nuclear supremacy and waving the nuclear index finger towards Russia,
resulting in flushing out thousands (~150k?) of civilian lives and causing unimaginable pain and agony for generations.

"But they did their duty! That is honorable! Someone had to!".
Thank you for mentioning that, since I suck at bringing my points across, I will let help me.

To this day, I struggle to understand how the uses of 'Little Boy' and later 'Fat Man' are today so widely accepted and tolerated, with a simple shoulder shrug and an empty-minded "well, they had to".
And this from a 'Nation under God'.

Despite the tremendous double-moral and hypocrisy (dropping nuclear bombs killing 220000+ people to 'save lives'), it makes me sick when I see these events being remembered in... somewhat of a positive light.
Not saying this thread did that, at all... it just triggered me I guess, forgive my weakness.

[Stealhead]

One of my good friends from childhood his grandfather was a navigator on first B-17s and later B-29s. Some of the things he told us about bombing missions in 29s against Japan where really hair raising. For example the jet stream which was first discovered by the Japanese(due to it being very strong there) before they switched to low altitude fire bombing they first used the same high level bombings as used in Europe.

The problem was they did not understand well how the jet stream behaved. One mission it might be below you and push the bombs miles off target bad enough. Worse though was on some missions they would get caught in a 190+ mph headwind so strong that in reality the bomber was only going 30 0r 40 mph a very easy target for AAA when that happed they just had to hope that the Japanese gunner did not pick your plane as he had a very easy target.

The fire bombing was worse low level and if you anything but the first wave you got the smell of what the previous bombs had already done lets just say that many crewman had limited appetites but that is war I recon. If anything the 509th members where much less exposed to the effects of their attacks in the visceral sense. They also had the best aircraft so they had to deal much less with the buggy B-29 which could be a real dog.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

Edit:
Ok, just throwing a smiley in might not suffice and is not really fair, so let me add some words.
I was being sarcastic when I called the E. Gay crew "true heroes", for they are not. Not at all.

Why? Because they executed an order they should not have.

Now, the following is easy to say, yet I stand by it and this reflects my honest opinion:
Dropping little boy on Hiroshima was a terrible act of mass murder - nothing else.
The official reason was "to end the war", yet after all it was a weapon test with some nice side effects like achieving nuclear supremacy and waving the nuclear index finger towards Russia,
resulting in flushing out thousands (~150k?) of civilian lives and causing unimaginable pain and agony for generations.

"But they did their duty! That is honorable! Someone had to!".
Thank you for mentioning that, since I suck at bringing my points across, I will let help me.

To this day, I struggle to understand how the uses of 'Little Boy' and later 'Fat Man' are today so widely accepted and tolerated, with a simple shoulder shrug and an empty-minded "well, they had to".
And this from a 'Nation under God'.

Despite the tremendous double-moral and hypocrisy (dropping nuclear bombs killing 220000+ people to 'save lives'), it makes me sick when I see these events being remembered in... somewhat of a positive light.
Not saying this thread did that, at all... it just triggered me I guess, forgive my weakness.

General Lemay was mad as well, he was destroying cities and killing numerous more people with his fire bombing campaign and believed he could bring Japan to surrender without the bomb. In reality, the bomb was probably a good thing compared to the longer term suffering that would've happened. That is, unless you think we should've just surrounded them and waited them out....