Military
Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress built by the Glenn L. Martin Company in Nebraska, was among the early “Silverplate” bombers modified to carry nuclear weapons. Selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr. and named for his mother, it carried the uranium bomb Little Boy from Tinian to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, in the first atomic attack used in warfare, which killed tens of thousands and devastated the city. Three days later it also took part in the second atomic operation as a weather reconnaissance plane. After the war it entered Smithsonian care and, after long restoration and controversy, went on display in Virginia in 2003.
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Virginia · United States
