As Hiroshima receded into the distance, crew members looked back through the windows and gaped at the mushroom cloud rising more than 30,000 feet. Two shock waves from the explosion buffeted the plane. The Enola Gay turned and headed back toward the base. “Little Boy,” as the bomb had been nicknamed, dropped from 30,000 feet and detonated above the city as planned. Over Hiroshima, the bomb bay doors opened at 8:15 a.m. Nelson, an inveterate reader, pulled out a novel, “Watch Out for Willie Carter,” a boxing story. For most of the six-hour flight, there was little to do. The Enola Gay, named for the mother of colonel and pilot Paul Tibbets, took off at 2:45 a.m. “I knew it was an important mission because we were told this mission had the potential to end the war,” Nelson wrote. That was one tipoff to the gravity of the situation. they boarded the plane in the glare of floodlights, with hundreds of officials present. They ate breakfast in the mess hall and said prayers in the chapel. As Nelson himself related in a posthumously published autobiography, “At the time I still did not fully understand the scope of the mission, or the strength of the weapon we were carrying.” 5 shortly before midnight for a briefing in which they learned they would be dropping a bomb. The crew had no idea what they were practicing for. Nelson flew on three routine missions on the B-29, each time accompanied by two other planes.
Plane and crew were sent to Tinian, one of the Mariana Islands. On June 14, he was among those who went to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up the silver-plated B-29 from the factory. “He thought: ‘I can’t be a pilot, but I can be on a plane.’” A sergeant looked at his papers and told him: “Oh, you’re meant for overseas.” “Dick was just elated,” Nancy said. In April 1945, he reported to the 509th Squadron in Wendover, Utah. Unbeknownst to him, he was being investigated by the Manhattan Project’s security team.
Everyone else in his class received assignments and shipped out. Instead, he went to the Air Corps’ radio school in South Dakota and after graduation was sent to the B-29 base in Clovis, New Mexico to await orders. Army after high school, hoping to become a pilot like his older brother. Nevertheless, she heard her husband’s stories so many times in the years to come that in his speaking engagements, if he’d forget a detail, he would look at her and she would prompt him.īorn in Moscow, Idaho in 1925, Richard relocated with his family to Los Angeles at age 3 and enlisted in the U.S. Nancy Nelson was only 13 when World War II ended. In September 1945, Jeppson was awarded the Silver Star in recognition for his service to his country.We met Thursday, the 75th anniversary of the bombing. Jeppson's role was to remove the safety plugs from the weapon just before reaching the target area. Jeppson, along with Rear Admiral William Sterling Parsons were responsible for arming the bomb during the flight from Tinian to Japan. He served as assistant weaponeer on the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August, 6 1945. 1922) was a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps during WW II. His decorations include the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross and 15 Air Medals. In August 1946 he completed his service in the Air Corps as a major. In 1945 he navigated the Enola Gay when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
He was selected to fly General Mark Clark on a secret mission to negotiate with the Free French in Algeria, and was navigator on the aircraft that flew General Dwight Eisenhower to the invasion site in North Africa to launch Operation Torch. Army Air Corps navigator who flew 58 B-17 Flying Fortress combat missions with the 97th Bomb Group over occupied France and Germany during WW II. Dimensions are 16.25"(L) X 10.25"(H) X 23.25" (Wingspan) Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk (b.1921), Navigator for the Enola Gay, was an American U.S. This high quality replica is handcrafted from mahogany and comes with a wooden base.