Enola Gay

Author: Gordon Thomas
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497658861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439

Book Description
From theNew York Times–bestselling coauthors: A “fascinating . . . unrivaled” history of the B-29 and its fateful mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (The New York Times Book Review). Painstakingly researched, the story behind the decision to send the Enola Gay to bomb Hiroshima is told through firsthand sources. From diplomatic moves behind the scenes to Japanese actions and the US Army Air Force’s call to action, no detail is left untold. Touching on the early days of the Manhattan Project and the first inkling of an atomic bomb, investigative journalist Gordon Thomas and his writing partner Max Morgan-Witts, take WWII enthusiasts through the training of the crew of the Enola Gay and the challenges faced by pilot Paul Tibbets. A page-turner that offers “minute-by-minute coverage of the critical periods” surrounding the mission, Enola Gay finally separates myth and reality from the planning of the flight to the moment over Hiroshima when the atomic age was born (Library Journal).

An Exhibit Denied

Author: Martin Harwit
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1468479059
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 501

Book Description
At 8:15 A.M., August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay released her load. For forty three seconds, the world's first atomic bomb plunged through six miles of clear air to its preset detonation altitude. There it exploded, destroying Hiroshima and eighty thousand of her citizens. No war had ever seen such instant devastation. Within nine days Japan surrendered. World War II was over and a nuclear arms race had begun. Fifty years later, the National Air and Space Museum was in the final stages of preparing an exhibition on the Enola Gay's historic mission when eighty-one members of Congress angrily demanded cancellation of the planned display and the resignation or dismissal of the museum's director. The Smithsonian tnstitution, of which the National Air and Space Museum is a part, is heavily dependent on congressional funding. The Institution's chief executive, Smithsonian Secretary I. Michael Heyman, in office only four months at the time, scrapped the exhibit as requested, and promised to personally oversee a new display devoid of any historic context. In the wake of that decision I resigned as the museum's director and left the Smithsonian.

The Enola Gay and the Smithsonian Institution

Author: Charles T. O’Reilly
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786484004
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, which ushered on the end of World War II. For the 50th anniversary of this major event in world history, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution produced an exhibit. A controversy erupted, however, over the exhibit's historical authenticity. Veterans, for example, complained that the museum displayed a misrepresented version of history. After concisely covering the background of the Enola Gay and its mission, this study focuses on the controversy surrounding the museum exhibit. Issues covered include casualty figures, ethical questions, and political correctness, among others. The viewpoints of such groups as museum personnel, exhibit organizers, veterans, and historians are covered. Appendices offer information on content analysis of the National Air and Space Museum exhibit script, non-museum materials that were intended to complement the exhibit script, and the importance of full disclosure in research.

History Wars

Author: Edward T. Linenthal
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429936770
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
From the "taming of the West" to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the portrayal of the past has become a battleground at the heart of American politics. What kind of history Americans should read, see, or fund is no longer merely a matter of professional interest to teachers, historians, and museum curators. Everywhere now, history is increasingly being held hostage, but to what end and why? In History Wars, eight prominent historians consider the angry swirl of emotions that now surrounds public memory. Included are trenchant essays by Paul Boyer, John W. Dower, Tom Engelhardt, Richard H. Kohn, Edward Linenthal, Micahel S. Sherry, Marilyn B. Young, and Mike Wallace.

Enola Gay and the Court of History

Author: Robert P. Newman
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820470719
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
In this hard-hitting, thoroughly researched, and crisply argued book, award-winning historian Robert P. Newman offers a fresh perspective on the dispute over President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II. Newman's argument centers on the controversy that erupted around the National Air and Space Museum's (NASM) exhibit of Enola Gay in 1995. Newman explores the tremendous challenges that NASM faced when trying to construct a narrative that would satisfy American veterans and the Japanese, as well as accurately reflect the current historical research on both the period and the bomb. His full-scale investigation of the historical dispute results in a compelling story of how and why our views about the bombing of Japan have evolved since its occurrence. Enola Gay and the Court of History is compulsory reading for all those interested in the history of the Pacific war, the morality of war, and the failed NASM exhibition. The book offers the final word on the debate over Truman's decision to drop the bomb.

Return of the Enola Gay

Author: Paul Warfield Tibbets
Publisher: Enola Gay Remembered Incorporated
ISBN: 9780970366603
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
On August 6, 1945, as the Enola Gay approached the Japanese city of Hiroshima, I fervently hoped for success in the first use of a nuclear type weapon. To me it meant putting an end to the fighting and the consequent loss of lives. In fact, I viewed my mission as one to save lives rather than take them. The intervening years has brought me many letters and personal contacts with individuals who maintain that they would not be alive if it had not been for what I did. Likewise, I have been asked in letters and to my face if I was not conscious stricken for the loss of life I caused by dropping the first atomic bomb. To those who ask, I quickly reply, "Not in the least."

Mission to Tokyo

Author: Robert F. Dorr
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 0760341222
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
From Hell Hawks! author Bob Dorr, Mission to Tokyo takes the reader on a World War II strategic bombing mission from an airfield on the western Pacific island of Tinian to Tokyo and back. Told in the veterans' words, Mission to Tokyo is a narrative of every aspect of long range bombing, including pilots and other aircrew, groundcrew, and escort fighters that accompanied the heavy bombers on their perilous mission. Several thousand men on the small Mariana Islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian were trying to take the war to the Empire—Imperial Japan—in B-29 Superfortresses flying at 28,000 feet, but the high-altitude bombing wasn't very accurate. The decision was made to take the planes down to around 8,000 feet, even as low as 5,000 feet. Eliminating the long climb up would save fuel, and allow the aircraft to take heavier bomb loads. The lower altitude would also increase accuracy substantially. The trade-off was the increased danger of anti-aircraft fire. This was deemed worth the risk, and the devastation brought to the industry and population of the capital city was catastrophic. Unfortunately for all involved, the bombing did not bring on the quick surrender some had hoped for. That would take six more months of bombing, culminating in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As with Mission to Berlin (Spring 2011), Mission to Tokyo focuses on a specific mission from spring 1945 and provides a history of the strategic air war against Japan in alternating chapters.

Two Flights to Victory

Author: David G. Styles
Publisher: Spellmount
ISBN: 9780752462066
Category : Hiroshima-shi (Japan)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
As the Second World War drew to a close, the United States launched two air attacks that would secure victory and peace, but at a terrible cost. They were the only such attacks on Japan that were not part of the overall battle plan, but they changed the course of human history. One man was involved in both actions, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the leader of the Doolittle Raid in which sixteen B-25 bombs struck at Tokyo and neighbouring cities, forcing the withdrawal of Japanese troops. The outcome was that the Allies never lost another battle all the way to Japan. When it was deemed necessary to drop the atomic bomb, it was Doolittle who put forward his 12th Air Force comrade Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the Enola Gay with its deadly cargo to Hiroshima.In Two Flights to Victory, historian David Styles presents the fascinating story of these significant air attacks connected by one man, reveals why they were developed apart from the main Allied strategy and how the pilots were selected for their missions. Using extensive research and previously unpublished information, including interviews with veterans of the Doolittle Raid, it is an account of events that transformed combat, as the long-range bomber emerged as the most important strategic strike tool in modern warfare, and changed the political landscape of the twentieth century.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Author: Richard Rhodes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 890

Book Description
**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award** The definitive history of nuclear weapons—from the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—this epic work details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb. This sweeping account begins in the 19th century, with the discovery of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans’ race to beat Hitler’s Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players in this saga of physics, politics, and human psychology—from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence. From nuclear power’s earliest foreshadowing in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention forever changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story. Richard Rhodes’s ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in rich human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful work.

Ruin from the Air

Author: Gordon Thomas
Publisher: Scarborough House Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

Book Description