--- description: After the Enola Gay became the first plane to drop an atomic bomb — on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945 — the B-29 bomber stayed airborne. title: What Happened to the Enola Gay After Hiroshima? image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa09eb0e5b57a4f8/698a00f18fd2ee3cb635fe59/enola-gay.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [World War II](/tag/world-war-ii/) ## World War II Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # What Happened to the _Enola Gay_ After It Dropped the Atomic Bomb  by [Sanya Mansoor](/author/sanya-mansoor/)  ## Sanya Mansoor Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Updated: Jan 24, 2024 11:17 AM CUTPublished: Aug 6, 2019 1:30 PM CUT  The Enola Gay was the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb The Enola Gay was the first aircraft to drop an atomic bombUniversal History Archive—Universal Images Group/Getty Images  by [Sanya Mansoor](/author/sanya-mansoor/)  ## Sanya Mansoor Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Updated: Jan 24, 2024 11:17 AM CUTPublished: Aug 6, 2019 1:30 PM CUT After the _Enola Gay_ dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, “[a city died, and 70,000 of its inhabitants](https://time.com/vault/issue/1958-08-25/page/1/ "undefined").” The B-29 bomber stayed airborne, hovering above a terrifying mushroom cloud. This “dreadful instant,” as TIME [once put it](https://time.com/vault/issue/1958-08-25/page/19/ "undefined"), helped speed the end of World War II, [launched](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1048413,00.html "undefined") the atomic age and began an ethical debate over [the decision to use nuclear weapons](https://time.com/4346336/atomic-bombs-1945-history/ "undefined") that has continued for more than 70 years — and that has extended to questions about the plane itself. The _Enola Gay_ is a B-29 Superfortress, which pilot Paul Tibbets named after his mother, and which had been stripped of everything but the necessities, so as to be thousands of pounds lighter than an ordinary plane of that make. In 1945, it was given an important task. “It was just like any other mission: some people are reading books, some are taking naps. When the bomb left the airplane, the plane jumped because you released 10,000 lbs.,” Theodore Van Kirk, the plane’s navigator, [later](https://time.com/vault/issue/2005-08-01/page/50/ "undefined") recalled. “Immediately \[Tibbets\] took the airplane to a 180° turn. We lost 2,000 ft. on the turn and ran away as fast as we could. Then it exploded. All we saw in the airplane was a bright flash. Shortly after that, the first shock wave hit us, and the plane snapped all over.” The plane [returned](https://time.com/vault/issue/2005-08-01/page/48/ "undefined") to [Tinian Island](https://www.atomicheritage.org/location/tinian-island "undefined"), from which it had come. A few days later, on Aug. 9, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki. While it did not drop the bomb on Nagasaki, the _Enola Gay_ did take flight to get data on the weather in the lead-up to the second strike on Japan. ### Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Photos From the Ruins  Not published in LIFE. Urakami Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Nagasaki, September, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, September, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima streetcar, September, 1945. J. R. Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. A photo album, pieces of pottery, a pair of scissors - shards of life strewn on the ground in Nagasaki, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, 1945, a few months after an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," on the city. Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. The landscape around Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, September, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Neighborhood reduced to rubble by atomic bomb blast, Hiroshima, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bust in front of destroyed cathedral two miles from the atomic bomb detonation site, Nagasaki, Japan, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, 1945, two months after the August 6 bombing. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, 1945. Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Two women pay respects at a ruined cemetery, Nagasaki, 1945. Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, September, 1945. J.R. Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images After the war, the airplane took flight a few more times. In the aftermath of World War II, the Army Air Forces flew the _Enola Gay_ during an atomic test program in the Pacific; it was then delivered to be stored in an airfield in Arizona before being flown to Illinois and transferred to the Smithsonian in July 1949\. But even under the custody of the museum, the _Enola Gay_ remained at an air force base in Texas. It took its last flight in 1953, arriving on Dec. 2 at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. As the [Smithsonian](https://www.si.edu/object/nasm%5FA19500100000 "undefined") recounts, it stayed there until August of 1960, until preservationists grew worried that the decay of the historic artifact would reach a point of no return if it stayed outside much longer. Smithsonian staffers took the plane apart into smaller pieces and moved it inside. By the time the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan approached, the Smithsonian had already spent nearly a decade restoring the plane for exhibition at the [Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/boeing-b-29-superfortress-enola-gay "undefined"). But when the nearly 600-page proposal for the exhibit was seen by Air Force veterans, the anniversary started a new round of controversy over the plane, as TIME [explained](https://time.com/vault/issue/1994-05-23/page/68/ "undefined") in 1994: --- > “” --- Eventually, the criticism from veterans, Congress and others resulted in major changes to the exhibition. “\[The show\] will no longer include a long section on the postwar nuclear race that veterans groups and members of Congress had criticized. The critics said that the discussion did not belong in the exhibit and was part of a politically loaded message that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan began a dark chapter in human history,” the New York _Times_ [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/01/us/smithsonian-substantially-alters-enola-gay-exhibit-after-criticism.html "undefined"). That version of the exhibition opened in 1995, displaying more than half of the plane, the restoration of which was still unfinished. But the exhibition proved popular. When it closed in 1998, about four million people had visited it, according to a [report](https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a466911.pdf "undefined") by _Air Force Magazine_‘s Correll — the most ever to visit an Air and Space Museum special exhibition to that point. It would take until 2003 for the full plane to be displayed, at the Air and Space Museum’s [location](https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center "undefined") in Chantilly, Va. That opening again provoked protest, but it can still be [seen there.](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/boeing-b-29-superfortress-enola-gay "undefined")  Demonstrators protest at the Enola Gay exhibit at the the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center , on its opening day, Dec. 15, 2003 in Chantilly, Va. Joyce Naltchayan—AFP/Getty Images And as long as it is on display, the questions it raises are likely to continue — after all, they have been with the _Enola Gay_ since it first became a household name. Even on board, the men who flew the plane knew as much. Van Kirk, the navigator, later described the crew as having had the immediate thought that, “This war is over.” And copilot Robert A. Lewis kept a personal log of the mission, which — when it was [later made public](https://time.com/vault/issue/1971-12-06/page/20/ "undefined") — offered a look at what else they were thinking. “I honestly have the feeling of groping for words to explain this,” he wrote of the moments after the mushroom cloud rose, “or I might say My God what have we done.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5644493/what-happened-enola-gay/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5644493/what-happened-enola-gay/"},"headline":"What Happened to the Enola Gay After It Dropped the Atomic Bomb","datePublished":"2019-08-06T13:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-24T11:17:28.000Z","description":"The B-29 bomber now lives at the National Air and Space Museum","url":"https://time.com/5644493/what-happened-enola-gay/","keywords":["World War II","History","hiroshima","onetime","Evergreen"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa09eb0e5b57a4f8/698a00f18fd2ee3cb635fe59/enola-gay.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sanya Mansoor","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sanya-mansoor/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa09eb0e5b57a4f8/698a00f18fd2ee3cb635fe59/enola-gay.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Enola Gay","caption":"Enola Gay","creditText":"Universal History Archive—Universal Images Group/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/world-war-ii/","name":"World War II"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5644493/what-happened-enola-gay/","name":"What Happened to the Enola Gay After It Dropped the Atomic Bomb"}}]}] ```