This made it thousands of pounds lighter than a typical B-29 and allowed. In order to carry the enormous weapon, the plane had been stripped of anything non-essential. The plane is a B-29 Superfortress which had been named after pilot Paul Tibbets’ mother. In 2003, the entire restored B-29 Enola Gay went on display at NASM's new Steven F. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan.
The exhibit was changed due to a controversy over original historical script displayed with the plane. It was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Paul Tibbets., Enola Gay gained additional national attention in 1994 when the front portion of the plane was exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington, D.C. Because of its roles in the atomic bombings of Japan, its name has been synonymous with the bombings themselves. Five and a half hours earlier, the B-29 departed from Tinian, a small Pacific. UPI Enola Gay is the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped 'Little Boy', the first atomic bomb ever used in war, when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) attacked Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, just before the end of World War II. The Enola Gay dropped the 8,900-pound bomb, nicknamed 'Little Boy,' over Hiroshima at 8:15 A.M.
