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The last B-29 in squadron use retired from service in September 1960. The B-29 is most known by many for two missions that occurred in August 1945, over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that lead to the end of World War II. Designed as a high-altitude daytime bomber, the B-29 flew more low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing missions. In wartime, the B-29 was capable of flight up to 31,850 feet at speeds of 350 mph. built 536 in at its plant in Omaha, Nebraska. built 668 Superfortresses in Georgia, and the Glenn L. Boeing built 2,766 B-29s at plants in Wichita, Kansas and Renton, Washington. The most common cause of maintenance headaches and catastrophic failures was the engine.Ī total of 3,970 B-29s were built.
PICTURE ON ENOLA GAY PLANE SERIES
Initial models were plagued with problems, and faced a constant series of modifications. Part of it was a reaction to Japan's deep-seated anger over being bombed twice in.The first B-29 prototype made its maiden flight from Boeing Field in Seattle on September 21, 1942. Part of this animosity fed into intense anti-Japanese sentiments on the part of many US World War II veterans still proud about Tokyo's ignominious capitulation in 1945. Dragging together a few parts of the fuselage, a propeller and other assorted pieces, like its vertical stabilizer, wheels or instruments, was tantamount to reducing the Enola Gay to an infamous hulk, worthy only of being shown as the fragments of a wreck. For many, the uniqueness of this one aircraft in human history demanded that a much greater level of reverent respect be shown for it.
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They intended to pressure the Smithsonian into altering its allegedly 'revisionist' representations of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most importantly, the Air Force Association (an organization for retired and active personnel of the US Air Force) and the American Legion (a national veteran's association) launched a lobbying campaign in the local DC media and the US Congress against the exhibition. Once the authors circulated their proposal among historians, military experts and World War II servicemen, however, intense protests began. As a result, the Smithsonian chose to deflect any public criticism by sharing the show's script among many possible stakeholders, inviting them to vet the exhibit. But the restoration could not be completed in time, and the entire plane was too large to fit inside the museum on the National Mall. To memorialize the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, the Smithsonian had ramped up a sophisticated program during 19 in anticipation of staging a comprehensive exhibition centered on the Smithsonian's ongoing renovation of the Enola Gay. Part of the Sturm und Drang of 1995 tied directly back to the Smithsonian's failure, or inability, to show the whole aircraft. The culture wars of the 1990s, however, turned this admirable academic aspiration into grist for innumerable polemics as both pro- and anti-Hiroshima activists manoeuvered back and forth through the media about the possible merits or demerits of dropping the 'Little Boy' U-238 atomic bomb over Hiroshima. And this is what we aim to offer our visitors. But a comprehensive and thoughtful discussion can help us learn from history.
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We have found no way to exhibit the Enola Gay and satisfy everyone. Martin Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, said at the time: This is our responsibility, as a national museum in a democracy predicated on an informed citizenry. Most importantly, its curators designed the exhibition so as to examine the motives, practices and after-effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The emblematic components of this B-29 bomber put on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC (1) were meant to anchor a particular type of historical exhibition. In 1995, a national, then global furore was whipped up by ideological, cultural and aesthetic conflict over displaying parts and pieces of the then not fully restored Enola Gay.