Additional raids on selected targets and the aerial mining of shipping lanes effectively left Japan isolated and in military, economic, political, and social shambles by the end of July 1945. Approximately 300 B-29s attacked Tokyo in March 1945, killing upwards of 100,000 people and destroying one-fourth of the city in a single 24 hour period. The 20th aimed to destroy Japanese industry and kill or drive away its workers by burning the mostly-wood cities to the ground. The failure to achieve results with daylight, high-altitude, precision bombing in the unique operational environment over Japan led to a switch to low-level, nighttime, firebombing raids. The nationwide effort to manufacture the technologically-sophisticated B-29 included factories in Washington, Kansas, Nebraska, and Georgia turning out complete aircraft and thousands of sub-contractors producing smaller components and equipment.Īfter a long and challenging development phase, the B-29s of the 20th Air Force went into combat against Imperial Japan in June 1944 from bases in India and China and in November 1944 from the Mariana Islands. It also had advanced tricycle landing gear and was the first bomber to have an analog computer-controlled defensive armament system and a pressurized and heated fuselage that meant the 11-person crew did not have to wear oxygen masks and heavy, bulky clothing during long missions. Designed to fly farther, faster, and higher than any other bomber, the combination of the B-29’s aerodynamic, structural, and propulsion innovations allowed it to carry 5,000 pounds of bombs to a target 1,500 miles away while cruising at 220 miles per hour at altitudes up to 30,000 feet. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the most advanced propeller-driven airplane in the world in 1945, making it the ultimate definition of a “modern” airplane.
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As a new and deadly weapon, an atomic bomber, Enola Gay facilitated a turning point in human history as it ushered in the dawn of the Atomic Age and the threat of nuclear war. The delivery system for these bombs, the Superfortress, represented the latest advances in American aeronautical engineering and bomber design, and its use in the skies over Japan reflected the evolution of strategic bombing doctrine. Another atomic attack on Nagasaki followed three days later. Reports of approaching bad weather convinced the Americans to drop the next bomb on August 9.On August 6, 1945, the crew of a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare, called “Little Boy,” on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The decision to use Fat Man just days after the explosion of Little Boy at Hiroshima was based on two calculations: the always-changeable Japanese weather-the appearance of a typhoon or other major weather event could force deployment to be postponed for weeks-and the belief that two bombings following in quick succession would convince the Japanese that the Americans had plenty of atomic devices and were ready to keep using them until Japan finally surrendered.
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The scientists and ordnance experts at Los Alamos had agonized for years over how to use plutonium in an atomic weapon, and Fat Man was the result. This was a plutonium implosion device of far greater complexity than the Little Boy bomb used at Hiroshima, which used uranium-235 in a fairly conventional explosive mechanism. Like Kokura and Hiroshima, it had not suffered much thus far from American conventional bombing.Īfter the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, workers on Tinian island labored intensely to put the finishing touches on the Fat Man bomb and prepare it for use. Nagasaki also was an important port city.
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It was larger, with an approximate population of 263,000 people, and some major military facilities, including two Mitsubishi military factories. The third choice, Nagasaki was a port city located about 100 miles from Kokura. That was one of the reasons the Target Committee thought it would be a good option after Hiroshima. The Americans knew all this, but strangely had not targeted the city yet in their conventional bombing campaign. In Kokura, a city of 130,000 people on the island of Kyushu, the Japanese operated one of their biggest ordnance factories, manufacturing among other things chemical weapons. Instead they identified Kokura as the second target after Hiroshima. The Target Committee appointed by President Harry Truman to decide which Japanese cities would receive the Little Boy and Fat Man atomic bombings did not place Nagasaki among their top two choices.