Where did the enola gay take off
The pilot on the 1,570-mile flight was the unit’s commanding officer, Colonel Paul Tibbets, and the Superfortress was named ‘Enola Gay’ after his mother. Buoyed by the news, Truman, on 26 July, jointly issued the Potsdam Declaration with Winston Churchill and Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, calling on Japan to surrender or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ Kantaro Suzuki, Imperial Japan’s last prime minister, chose to ignore the ultimatum.Īt 02.45 am, on 6 August 1945, a B-29 of the USAAF’s 509th Composite Group took off from Tinian bound for Japan. It was against this grim backdrop that US President Harry S Truman, attending the Potsdam Conference in Germany, learned of the successful atomic test on 16 July at Alamogordo, New Mexico. Preparations were made for all prisoners to be massacred in the event of an Allied invasion of the Japanese homeland. Some 30,000 of these men were executed or died from malnutrition, disease or ill-treatment and of the 5,102 RAF prisoners, 1,714 lost their lives. Japan also refused to recognise the Geneva Convention, and the 140,000 Allied servicemen it captured laboured as slaves in appalling conditions. Throughout the war, Japanese rule in Asia was tyrannical and cruel, and it caused the deaths of an estimated 24 million men, women and children. In the spring of 1945, Japanese diplomats had begun to extend unofficial peace feelers to the Soviet Union unaware that Stalin had promised (at the Yalta Conference in February) to join the war against Japan by mid-August. American military planners were unable to agree a figure for projected casualties, but half a million Purple Heart combat decorations were stockpiled. While Allied victory was assured, the war was expected to go on into 1946, and it was clear that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would be costly. On the night of 9/10 March 1945, 16 square miles of Tokyo were razed in an incendiary attack that killed at least 80,000 people. The US Navy’s submarine blockade ensured that food and medicine were in short supply, and Japan’s highly flammable cities lay within range of USAAF B-29 bombers. America’s military and industrial power was by now overwhelming, and over three million Japanese servicemen and civilians were dead. In the Far East, Japan was embroiled in a bloody, and ultimately futile, war of attrition against the United States and its British Commonwealth and Chinese allies. Cheshire duly set off for the Marianas in the western Pacific, arriving at the huge American air base on Tinian Island at the end of the month.
He was also informed that he had been selected by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to witness the dropping of the bomb on a target in Japan. In July 1945, Group Captain Cheshire was working dejectedly at a desk job in Washington DC when he was told, in the strictest secrecy, about the $2 billion-dollar Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. Cheshire’s unconventional approach to low-level target marking brought the squadron success and his fourth operational tour ended with him perfecting the technique at the controls of a Mustang fighter. 617 Squadron, the celebrated ‘Dambusters’. In March 1943, aged 25, he became the RAF’s youngest group captain but chose to forfeit his rank in November to take command of No. In November 1940, Cheshire, while still a pilot officer, was awarded his first Distinguished Service Order for bombing Cologne in a flak-damaged Whitley and bringing the aircraft safely home. An Enduring Relationship : A History of Friendship between the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force of Oman.Sir Alan Cobham A Life of a Pioneering Aviator.Never Forgotten: The RAF in the Far East.Battle of Britain Aircrew 31 Aug to 6 Sep.Battle of Britain Groundcrew 7 to 13 September.Enter the RAF Museum Green Aviation Challenge.VJ75: Geography and Rediscovered Stories.Spitfire Family Run – Design your medal!.Virtual Lecture: Argentine Air Force Mirage 5 IAI “Dagger” in the South Atlantic Conflict, 1982.The RAF and the Evolution of Global Health.New exhibition: Falklands Conflict to today.RAF Museum Midlands Development Programme.