What did happen was that the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, dropped a uranium-based atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

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She carried the atom bomb to Guam, where it was then loaded onto the B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, for its fateful mission over Hiroshima.

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About 12 hours before "Little Boy" was placed aboard the aircraft Enola Gay, a scientist appeared at a Quonset hut on the island of Tinian to make final adjustments.

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And on an August day in 1945, he flew a B-29 he had named for his mother, Enola Gay, to Japan, where he and his crew dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

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In 1995 the National Air and Space Museum in Washington planned to put on show the Enola Gay in connection with an exhibition about the second world war, but the plan was scrapped after it stirred up controversy over Hiroshima.

ECONOMIST: Thomas Ferebee