Enola Gay Hazard Tibbets (December 10, 1893 - May1983), was the mother of Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. Her son named his plane, the one that would drop the atomic bomb, after her.
Her father named her "Enola Gay" after the heroine of a novel that he liked.
EnolaGay is the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped "Little Boy", the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare, when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) attacked Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, just before the end of World War II.
EnolaGay (B-29-45-MO, serial number 44-86292, victor number 82) was assigned to the USAAF's 393rd Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group and flew the August 6 mission out of Tinian, a large island with several USAAF bases in the Mariana Islands chain.
According to Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts (EnolaGay, Stein and Day Pub, 1977), regularly assigned aircraft commander Robert Lewis was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for the important mission, and furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of 6 August to see it painted with the now-famous nose art.
was born February 23, 1915, son of EnolaGay and Paul Warfield Tibbets in Quincy, Illinois.
On August 5, 1945 Colonel Paul Tibbets formally named the B-29 Aircraft 44-86292 EnolaGay after his mother (she was named after the heroine, EnolaGay, of a novel her father had liked).
On August 6, 1945 the EnolaGay departed with Tibbets at the controls at 2:45 a.m.
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