Enola Gay Chronology


May 18, 1945 Aircraft 44-86292 delivered to U.S. Army Air Forces at Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Factory, Omaha, Nebraska.
June 14, 1945 Aircraft ferried to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, by pilot-in-command Capt. Robert A. Lewis.
June 27, 1945 Aircraft and 11-man crew depart Wendover for South Pacific.
July 6, 1945 Aircraft arrives at Guam, where additional modifications to the bomb bay are made, then flies on to Tinian Island in the Marianas.
July 12, 1945 Aircraft and crew resume training.
Aug. 5, 1945
Aircraft 44-86292 formally named Enola Gay after Col. Paul Tibbets' mother.  Ground crew works feverishly to prepare it for the next day's mission.
Aug. 6, 1945
Enola Gay departs at 2:45 a.m. for Hiroshima, Japan.  The atomic bomb is released over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time.  The aircraft returns to Tinian at 2:58 p.m., twelve hours and thirteen minutes after takeoff.
Aug. 9, 1945 Flight report and operations order indicate that Enola Gay flies as weather plane on the Nagasaki atomic mission.
Sept. 2, 1945 Japan formally surrenders aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Nov. 6, 1945 Enola Gay departs Tinian for Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico where most of the 509th is based after the Japanese surrender.
April 29, 1946 Enola Gay is flown to Kwajalein Island by Col. Tibbets for "Operation Crossroads" nuclear tests.
July 24, 1946 Enola Gay, bearing "Operation Crossroads" special insignia, is flown to  Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, Arizona, for storage.
July 3, 1949 Enola Gay is retrieved from storage and flown to Orchard Place Army Air Field (now O'Hare International Airport) near Chicago by Colonel Tibbets.
July 3, 1949 Enola Gay is formally accepted by the Smithsonian Institution for the National Air Museum.
Jan. 12, 1952 Enola Gay is flown to Pyote Air Force Base, Texas, for temporary storage.
Dec. 2, 1953
Enola Gay is flown from Pyote Air Force Base, Texas, to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland and placed in storage.
Aug. 10, 1960 Workers begin disassembling Enola Gay.

July 21, 1961
Enola Gay is moved overland to National Air Museum's storage facility in Suitland, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
Dec. 5, 1984 National Air and Space Museum crews begin restoring Enola Gay.
Nov. 22, 1994 Forward fuselage of the Enola Gay is moved from Suitland, Maryland, to the National Air and Space Museum.

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