In 1994 the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum was beginning to mount an exhibit titled “The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War.” The central artifact of the exhibit, set to open on the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was the cockpit and nose section of the Enola Gay. The giant plane, which had been designed and built in May 1945 without the B-29’s normal protective armor and gun turrets, would not meet its next combat until 49 years later, in Washington, DC. FLYING ON AUGUST 6, 1945, without any fighter escort over a devastated nation with no remaining antiaircraft defenses, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay was unmolested on its long way to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
