Hundreds of other second world war artefacts are being auctioned at Bonhams, from American flags flown in Normandy on D-Day to Japanese military maps of Iwo Jima. Steven Lewis said he is putting the second world war documents up for sale ahead of his plans to publish his father’s manuscript of wartime experiences in a book at a later date. The other Lewis items for auction include personal photographs from the war and his hand-drawn diagram of the Hiroshima bombing run showing the bomb blast’s expected shock wave range and the evasive flight path the Enola Gay would take after detonation. Enola Gay navigator Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the last surviving crew member, died in Georgia in 2014. Robert Lewis died in Virginia in 1983, Tibbets in 2007 in Ohio. Japan surrendered six days later, ending the war. Three days after the Hiroshima bombing, another US B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
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“People don’t realise how many times he flew aboard the Enola Gay,” Steven Lewis said. But Tibbets only flew the Enola Gay a couple of times, while Lewis had piloted the aircraft 16 times during test flights leading up to the Hiroshima mission. The move made Tibbets a household name after his crew completed the world’s first atomic bombing mission, which destroyed much of the Japanese city and killed tens of thousands of its citizens. Photograph: NY Daily News via Getty ImagesĪs commander of the Hiroshima mission, Colonel Paul Tibbets was also the pilot of the Enola Gay, relegating the lower-ranked Lewis to co-pilot. Martin Company at its plant in Bellevue, Nebraska.
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That B-29, actually a B-29-45-MO, Army Air Forces serial number 44-86292, was built not by Boeing, but by the Glenn L. There once was a B-29 Superfortress bomber known to entire generations of Americans.
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The crew of the Enola Gay, with Captain Robert Lewis third from right. Enola Gay Was a Specially Modified Aircraft for an Unthinkable Secret Task.