A script for 'The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War' was released for comment. Gay, the B-29 bomber that had dropped the first atomic bomb on. The exhibition text summarized the history and development of the Boeing B-29 fleet used in bombing raids against Japan.Īnother portion of the exhibit detailed the painstaking efforts of Smithsonian aircraft restoration specialists who had spent more than a decade restoring parts of the Enola Gay for this exhibition. The Air Force Association resented the exhibition of its Enola Gay icon as proposed, and worked with other veterans groups to change the presentation. This accession consists of records created and maintained by Martin Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), 1987-1995, documenting plans to exhibit the 'Enola Gay' and the resulting controversy. At the centre of the proposed exhibit would be the forward section of the restored Enola. The components on display included two engines, the vertical stabilizer, an aileron, propellers, and the forward fuselage that contains the bomb bay.Ī video presentation about the Enola Gay's mission included interviews with the crew before and after the mission including mission pilot Col. An exhibit that many felt portrayed the Japanese.
When news of this rounded approach spread, controversy ensued. The museum also began to create an exhibit based around the plane that included Japanese accounts of the event as well. It contained several major components of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber used in the atomic mission that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. Many of the Committee members fought bitterly any effort by the Smithsonian to inject some balance into the 1995 exhibit of the Enola Gay fuselage. From the early 1990s, curators at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum planned the exhibition of World War II in 1995 titled The Crossroads: the End of. In 1994, the Smithsonian began the restoration of the Enola Gay, the infamous B-29 warplane that dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima. This past exhibition, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, told the story of the role of the Enola Gay in securing Japanese surrender.