In 1945, Robert Lewis was a Captain in the 509 th Composite Bomb Group. Today, I am talking with men who were aboard the Enola Gay and the Great Artiste on those missions.
Three days later on August ninth, the B-29 Great Artiste dropped the plutonium atomic bomb, called the Fat Man, on Nagasaki. Puny by today’s one hundred megaton standards, but powerful enough to kill seventy-eight thousand one hundred and fifty people.
The Gimmick, also known as Little Boy, was a uranium atomic bomb with the explosive power of twenty thousand tons of TNT. The time was fifteen minutes and seventeen seconds past 8:00 AM, just seventeen seconds behind schedule. Aboard the plane were thirteen men a thing called “the Gimmick.” Some fourteen hundred miles and six hours later, the Enola Gay reached her appointment with history. Interviewer: At two forty-five in the morning of August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay took off from North field on Tinian.
