That exhibit was to include accounts from bomber pilots, documents exploring America's decision to use nuclear weapons and the consequences for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the second city to be hit by an atomic bomb. The Enola Gay's fuselage was last displayed from 1995 to 1998 as the centerpiece of an exhibit that Smithsonian officials had intended to depict the last, grim years of World War II.

From tables and photographs that will line the hall where the B-29 bomber is parked, visitors can learn about the plane's construction and capabilities and about air power's triumphs in World War II.įor the second time in 10 years, the Smithsonian will show the Enola Gay devoid of the controversy that preceded its fateful flight or the nearly 60-year-long debate over whether the United States should have dropped the bomb. 6, 1945, hastening the Japanese surrender that ended World War II. As every schoolchild learns, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug.

Beginning next month, visitors to the Smithsonian Institution's new Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia can see the Enola Gay, restored to a just-off-the-assembly-line shine.