Dr. Jeremy Kinney—The Flight of the Enola Gay: An End and a Beginning

80 years ago, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, beginning the atomic age. Explore this story with Dr. Jeremy Kinney of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. This program takes place at the Eisenhower NHS Speakers’ Tent.

On August 6, 1945, the crew of a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare, called “Little Boy,” on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Another atomic attack on Nagasaki followed three days later. The delivery system for these bombs, the Superfortress, represented the latest advances in American aeronautical engineering and bomber design, and its use in the skies over Japan reflected the evolution of strategic bombing doctrine. As a new and deadly weapon, an atomic bomber, Enola Gay facilitated a turning point in human history as it ushered in the dawn of the Atomic Age and the threat of nuclear war.

Dr. Jeremy R. Kinney is the Associate Director for Research, Collections, and Curatorial Affairs at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He leads the Museum’s research, curatorial, collections, and archives departments and provides counsel and advice on curatorial and museum affairs to the Director and Senior Leadership Team. He curates three collections at the Museum: interwar and World War II American military aviation, air racing, and aircraft propulsion. His research focuses on technology in the United States and Europe over the course of the twentieth century. His book, Reinventing the Propeller: Aeronautical Specialty and the Triumph of the Modern Airplane (Cambridge University Press) received the Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.