Tibbets understood little of the science behind the Manhattan Project but he knew bombing and bombers. In charge of the 509th was Paul Tibbets, born in Illinois but a product of an Iowa upbringing, serious, earnest, deadpan. No one else at B-29 bases in the Marianas had enjoyed the luxury of arriving aboard their own transport planes. It was supposed to be a combat group, like the others on Guam, Saipan and Tinian, yet it had only two flying squadrons – one with B-29 Superfortress bombers, the other with C-54 Skymaster transports. The 509th’s distinctive tailcode of an arrow inside a circle was changed to that of the 6th Bomb Group’s “circle R” by Tibbets after Tokyo Rose noted the tailcodes of the newly-arrived aircraft in two separate radio broadcasts.
Boeing B-29 Enola Gay on Tinian in the Marianas Islands.
