Warbird Information Exchange

Some older pictures of the Enola Gay...

In storage at Garber in 1983 (First couple of shots taken with my Mom's 110 camera...I was a kid, give me a break).





Below, the nose gear looking a little rough by a wing section...The vertical stab is partially visible in the background...



A few years later undergoing restoration...





Notice in the picture below the replica A-Bomb mount...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

Here's a shot of the aft fuselage in storage...



The forward Bomb Bay with part of the replica mount installed...



Some shots of the forward fuselage on display downtown in 1995 taken by a friend...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

What were the mission markings on the nose??? A mushroom cloud?

Fat men representing practice missions...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

why were they removed? Are they back on now?

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

The Enola Gay was restored back to the markings and configuration (radios, etc.) it had on August 6th, 1945. The Fat men symbols on the nose were painted after the atomic mission (post August 6th) as were a number of other things i.e. crew member names, etc....

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

Also notice that the name is now "thinner".

Sometime after the Hiroshima mission "Enola Gay" was painted over to make it larger and more prominant. It was restored to its 8/6/45 appearance during the restoration.

Yes, they delicately stripped the top coating of paint off of the "Enola Gay" lettering to reveal the original letters. Quite a process...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

I was there Fri and saw her for the first time.
Quite an awe inspiring sight!!

Owen

I recall there was quite a broo-ha-ha over just what words were used in the display of the Enola Gay. Had to be politically correct, didn't want to offend anyone!!

I suppose any mention of Pearl Harbor in any of the displays must be careful on their description of the "tragic incident"!!

The PC crowd can really drive me nuts!

I will second that!! The Lunatics are taking over the asyluml

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If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

uh, oh. There goes the thread...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

Interesting seeing how minor the mods are that were done to the forward bomb bay. What I see are the cut out in the crawl tube, Three cannon plugs on the forward right hand bulkhead, the anti sway device in the forward bomb rack and the tube/box thingy (technical term) in the forground.

I regards to the fat man mission marks, could they have been applied during post war drops/testing?

I believe they were applied on Tinian, post Hiroshima mission. They represent the test missions (pumpkin drops) and one actual that the aircraft was used on. All of the Silverplate aircraft on Tinian had these markings to some degree. The test drops were marked in black. The actual mission drops were marked in red. Since these markings were applied to the EG after August 6th, they were removed during restoration.

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

A nice shot from the NASM site when the plane was first re-assembled...

http://collections.nasm.si.edu/media/fu ... 00cp07.jpg

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."