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Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

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Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#3

Post by pwg »

tonteldoos wrote: post #2

I wonder if any of the guys in the photos realised to what extent they were (helping) rewriting history that day...

Given the secrecy surrounding the bombs, it is highly likely that not one of them had any idea what it was they were assembling/loading into the plane. All they likely knew was that it was "some kind of new, secret, bomb". It is questionable whether the "high ranking officials" referenced in the plane alignment photo caption even had much knowledge of just what this "new, secret, bomb" really was.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#4

Post by ewest »

tonteldoos wrote: post #2

I wonder if any of the guys in the photos realised to what extent they were (helping) rewriting history that day...

Just a day on the job as far as they were concerned. As with many things you might do, you only realize what you were doing was important (often) long after the fact.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#5

Post by rjsw »

pwg wrote: post #3
tonteldoos wrote: post #2

I wonder if any of the guys in the photos realised to what extent they were (helping) rewriting history that day...

Given the secrecy surrounding the bombs, it is highly likely that not one of them had any idea what it was they were assembling/loading into the plane. All they likely knew was that it was "some kind of new, secret, bomb". It is questionable whether the "high ranking officials" referenced in the plane alignment photo caption even had much knowledge of just what this "new, secret, bomb" really was.

At least one of them [1] knew exactly what it was, I would guess that the others were working for him and had a pretty good idea too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sterling_Parsons

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#6

Post by Icybee »

I found out a few weeks ago they made a bunch of those bombs, minus the nuclear elements, for training. They even dropped some on Japanese targets and found they were fairly effective just from the explosive content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_bomb

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#8

Post by symmetricsaurus »

Really intereresting photos.

It is a bit unfortunate that many of the captions and the sequence of photos are inaccurate. There are many misses regarding which bomb was which and on which plane it was loaded and on which city it was felled.

So, look at the pictures and ignore the captions and then read up on Wikipedia to understand the bigger picture.

Re: Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

#10

Post by mendort »

Icybee wrote: post #6

I found out a few weeks ago they made a bunch of those bombs, minus the nuclear elements, for training. They even dropped some on Japanese targets and found they were fairly effective just from the explosive content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_bomb

They cost between 13k and 26k a piece in 2014 USD. That is truly amazing.

EDIT:

Even more amazing when you consider that they weighed about 10k pounds.

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