“He wrote down everything and he kept everything,” said Steven Lewis, 57, of Hampton Township, New Jersey. Enola Gay is the name of the B-29 bomber (Superfortress) of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) that was used in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The younger Lewis said his father recorded details of every flight he took, including the three dozen he made aboard the Enola Gay. Tibbets, before the aircraft took off on August 6, 1945. A copy of a deeply moving pilots log, written during the top-secret Enola Gay mission that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, was auctioned in New York on Wednesday for 50,000.
#WHO WAS THE CO PILOT OF THE ENOLA GAY ARCHIVE#
The flight logs covering Lewis’ service in the Army Air Forces from 1942-46 are among an extensive archive of his documents handed down to his son, Steven Lewis.
#WHO WAS THE CO PILOT OF THE ENOLA GAY FULL#
When they released the bomb Tibbets went to full throttle, did 120 degree turn and put the aircraft into 30 degree dive to gain speed quickly. A meticulous record-keeper, Lewis’ handwritten entry in his personal flight log for that historic day reads: “No#1 Atomic bomb a huge success.” Answer (1 of 3): Tibbets coaxed the bomber up to 30,000 feet, before they released bomb, to give it maximum fall time, for them to escape. 6, 1945, bombing mission that changed the world. His gaze, even with the heavied lids of age, is intense. By Bill Van Orman Today, in his nineties, Paul Tibbets is still a handsome man. Lewis, a 27-year-old pilot from Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, logged a total of 36 flights aboard the Enola Gay, including the Aug. Paul Tibbets: The Man Who Piloted the Enola Gay General Paul Tibbets lived for decades with the memory of dropping the atomic bomb. The pre-sale estimate for the flight logs is $150,000 to $200,000. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. On Wednesday, two of his wartime flight log books, Hiroshima bombing plans, mission notes and other items are up for sale during an auction of World War II material being held at Bonhams in Manhattan. The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named for Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who selected the aircraft while it was still on the assembly line. B-29 Superfortress dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima 70 years ago this summer, none knew the four-engine bomber better than Capt. Enola Gay, the B-29bomber that was used by the United States on August 6, 1945, to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the first time the explosive device had been used on an enemy target. (AP) - Of the 12 men who flew aboard the Enola Gay the day the U.S.