ABSTRACT
On the morning of August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, a former medical student, arrived in the air space over the Japanese city Hiroshima. The plane, the Enola Gay (named after Tibbets's mother), flew unobstructed, but its crew was not without apprehension. They carried a small, unlit uranium sun in the belly of the silver fuselage. Down below on the streets of Hiroshima, air raid sirens were silent Another American plane had been in the air earlier, gauging the weather and visibility, relaying its data to Tibbets. Once it flew off, everyone in Hiroshima could relax and enjoy the day. People returned to work. Soldiers went back to drilling. Children scurried to school. Pedestrians and bicyclists jammed the old streets and walkways.
