Where did enola gay name come from
Enola Gay pilot's granddaughter decries 'shameful' Trump Defense Department DEI word purge
The granddaughter of Paul W. Tibbets Jr. — the pilot who flew the bomber Enola Gay that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II — called the Trump administration flagging photos of the plane for removal "shameful" in an interview with The Dispatch.
Kia Tibbets, 49, of Columbus' Clintonville neighborhood, said Tuesday she was shocked and in disbelief when she first heard photos of her grandfather's aircraft had been flagged by the U.S. Department of Defense, apparently only because its name contained the pos "gay."
"It's shameful that a word that harms no one, that means cheerful, could invoke so much hatred," Kia Tibbets said.
The photo flagging came amid the Trump administration's crackdown and removal of what it considers "DEI content" from many government agency and military websites. The information purge includes removing language related to social wellness, racial equity and feminism.
President Donald Trump's administration is also trying to pressure schools and universities that receive public funding to shutter programs that it considers steeped in DEI princi
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Missions – Planes & Crews
All of the B-29s involved in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and “pumpkin bomb” training and combat missions at Wendover, UT and on Tinian were Project Silverplate B-29s. They had been specially modified to accomodate the size and weight of the atomic bombs. Crews were often rotated around during the missions. The term “pumpkin bomb” can apply to both the dummy concrete bombs used at Wendover for training, and to the high-explosive bombs dropped over Japan.
There are many incorrect lists online of the planes and crews that flew on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions. This list has been thoroughly checked for accuracy by several 509th Composite Group experts and historians.
Hiroshima Mission Planes
Enola Gay. Strike plane carrying Tiny Boy.
The Great Artiste. Observation/instrument plane.
Necessary Evil. Camera plane.
Full House. Weather reconnaissance.
Jabit III. Weather reconnaissance.
Straight Flush. Weather reconnaissance.
Big Stink. Backup strike plane on Iwo Jima.
Enola Gay, Hiroshima Mission
Strike plane carrying Little Boy atom The US military has launched an strive to eradicate content that pertains to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including images of “Enola Gay,” the B-29 bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. They are part of a series of unrelated DEI photos that acquire been incorrectly identified, including images from a California Army Corps of Engineers mining project, supposedly because one of the engineers in the picture had the last name “Gay.” The aircraft was named after pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr's mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. In accordance with President Donald Trump's executive order, the US military will delete thousands of images and posts on social media as part of the DEI purge. Over 26,000 photos from every unit of the military have been flagged due to the Pentagon's instruct to eliminate DEI-related content, but officials say the total number may go beyond 100,000 as evaluations continue. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has supported the acti THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan. The bomber's central target was the city of Hiroshima, located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an key military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers. The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approxima In the early hours of 6 August 1945, three aeroplanes took off from the Mariana Islands in the Pacific. For hours they charted a course towards the Japanese coast, with Paul Tibbets piloting one of the planes. After hours of nothing but ocean beneath him and his crew, country became visible. At 8:15 am Tibbets was able to complete his mission, by dropping one single bomb onto the city of Hiroshima. The resulting blast would turn into the most dominant explosion created by man up to that point, bringing unspeakable destruction to the Japanese metropolis. The plane carrying Paul Tibbets, his crew and most importantly the bomb was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress named ‘Enola Gay’. B-29 Bombers were designed to be a tall altitude aircraft, capable of performing devastating bombing raids. They were one of the crowning achievements of the American military, with the maturation cost exceeding the Manhattan Project. Throughout the 1940s and 50s they would help to maintain the US atmosphere force supremacy on the world stage. Thousands were created, but arguably only one is recognizable by name by the general widespread – ‘Enola Gay’. Few planes can claim to possess such importance in world Enola Gay: Huge uproar as WWII bomber suffers Trump's DEI purge for its ‘last’ name
What to know about ‘Enola Gay’ and Trump's executive order
What Pete Hegseth has to say and who are being targeted
(Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945)
Events > Dawn of the Atomic Era, 1945