Personnel stationed around North Field on Tinian knew they were witnessing history, first watching the Enola Gay take off, then later land, but not really knowing what it was about to do or what it had just done. The Enola Gay was a bomber, named for Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who selected the aircraft while it was still on the assembly line.
Paul W Tibbets - On August 6, 1945, as the Enola Gay approached the Japanese city of Hiroshima. He was 91.Ībel, 94, is grateful they had a chance to reminisce again about how Farrens had to sneak to take that photo. Get this from a library Return of the Enola Gay. Farrens eventually did, too, after hanging up his clippers.Ī volunteer with Serenity Hospice in Salem helped facilitate the reunion, and the friendship that was forged over a photograph was rekindled, just in time, too. Abel, a retired civil structural engineer, moved away from Aurora. The two men recently reconnected after losing touch. “You’ve got to start at the bottom and work up,” Abel kidded him. Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died yesterday. I was supposed to be learning the equipment.”Ībel heard that story for the first time during a late-May visit with Farrens at Willson House Residential Care. Pilot of plane that dropped bomb on Hiroshima had no regrets. “I wasn’t happy about it – it was horrible - and I went to complain. “I patched hemorrhoids for 41 days,” he said with a chuckle. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. Farrens also supervised nurses at the hospital, but not before putting in his time. 6, 1945, when Tibbets flew the B-29 bomber Enola Gay over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and released a 10,000-pound atomic bomb dubbed 'Little Boy.' The blast killed between 70,000. The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named for Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who selected the aircraft while it was still on the assembly line.