Where was enola gay built

Enola Gay, the B heavy bomber that was used by the United States on August 6, , to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The effects of radiation are usually not immediately apparent. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged.

At its peak in November , the Martin Bomber Plant employed 14, persons. The bomber's primary target was the city of Hiroshima , located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost , and was an important military center, containing about 43, soldiers.

An air raid alert from earlier that morning had been called off after only a solitary aircraft was seen the weather plane , and by the city was alive with activity -- soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters on foot or on bicycles, groups of women and children working outside to clear firebreaks.

After a second shock wave reflected from the ground hit the plane, the crew looked back at Hiroshima. In February the Glenn L. Martin Company and the U.S. government began plans for an aircraft assembly plant at Fort Crook, Nebraska. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons the equivalent of 15, tons of TNT.

On the ground moments before the blast it was a calm and sunny Monday morning. Less than 10 percent of the buildings in the city survived without any damage, and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away. Small ad hoc rescue parties soon began to operate, but roughly half of the city's population was dead or injured.

In the early morning hours of August 6, , a B bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan. The most common first reaction of those that were indoors even miles from ground zero was that their building had just suffered a direct hit by a bomb.

Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,pound uranium gun-type bomb , over the city. In those areas most seriously affected virtually no one escaped serious injury. Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin right and the shadows of bodies onto walls.

The Enola Gay (Model number BMO, [N 1] Serial number , Victor number 82) was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (later part of Lockheed Martin) at its bomber plant in Bellevue, Nebraska, located at Offutt Field, now Offutt Air Force Base. The blast wave followed almost instantly for those close-in, often knocking them from their feet.

Enola Gay remains there today on permanent display, its pivotal role in the Second World War confined to a single sentence: “On 6 August , this Martin-built BMO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan.”. It was the first time the explosive device had been used on an enemy target, and it destroyed most of the city.

Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1, feet above the city, directly over a parade field where soldiers of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics. Those that were indoors were usually spared the flash burns, but flying glass from broken windows filled most rooms, and all but the very strongest structures collapsed.

Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead. The bomber, piloted by the commander of the th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31, feet as it neared the target area.

Though already eleven and a half miles away, the Enola Gay was rocked by the blast. One boy was blown through the windows of his house and across the street as the house collapsed behind him. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave.

Survivors outdoors close to the blast generally describe a literally blinding light combined with a sudden and overwhelming wave of heat. That B, actually a BMO, Army Air Forces serial number , was built not by Boeing, but by the Glenn L. Martin Company at its plant in Bellevue, Nebraska.

In two years, 1, B Martin Marauders rolled off the Omaha assembly line. At approximately a. The Enola Gay was built at the Glen L. Martin Aircraft Factory in Omaha, Neb., and accepted by the U.S. Army Air Force as one of 15 "special mission" Bs in June Built by the Glenn L.

Martin Company at its Bellevue, Nebraska, plant, the Enola Gay was one of the first fifteen Bs modified under the "Silverplate" specifications. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6, feet from ground zero.

At first, Tibbets thought he was taking flak.