Tibbets Jr., center, stands with the ground crew of the bomber Enola Gay, which Tibbets flew in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, on. The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. from the ground) hit the plane, the crew looked back at Hiroshima. In previous years, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the city mayors attended annual memorial services and renewed pledges for a nuclear-free world. Enola Gay crew AFP/Getty Images American bomber pilot Paul W. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released Little Boy, its. 'There is no doubt in my mind that many of you who are here today would not be here if it hadn't been for the courageous. Japan will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the bombing of the two cities on Aug. Theodore Van Kirk, the last surviving member of the Enola Gay flight crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the final stages of World War II, died Monday at an assisted living. Fifty years after the crew of the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, hastening Japan's surrender, The American Legion honored Tibbets and his crew with the Distinguished Service Medal. Electricity poles and bare trees accompany the dotted handful of windowless buildings which appear to have withstood the impossible. The aircraft was named after the mother of pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. Japan surrendered six days later, ending World War Two.Īrchive footage shows pre-bomb Hiroshima as a bustling, thriving city of trilby-topped gentlemen boarding trams, ladies dressed in elegant kimonos, and uniformed schoolchildren walking beneath cherry blossoms overhanging shopping streets.Īfter the blast, rubble and contorted metal stretch almost uninterruptedly to the horizon. Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that was used by the United States on August 6, 1945, to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the first time the explosive device had been used on an enemy target.