While the control panels and bomb site inside the glass bombadier's position in the aircraft's nose look new, the exterior skin remains corroded and dull. So far, the inside of the front half of the fuselage has been completed and the rear half of the fuselage hauled into place beside it. ''The only difference was the color of the paint,'' Mr. It has been recreated from photographs, or replaced with identical ground test equipment that survived down the years. Horigan said the Air Force told him the atomic equipment was removed and destroyed long ago. And the special bomb rack and related equipment added to accommodate the atomic bomb, originally highly classified, were missing. A few small pieces, including an ashtray and a clock, were lost to souvenier hunters as the plane shuttled from Arizona to Illinois to Texas to Maryland, where it was disassembled for easier storage at Andrews Air Force Base in 1960. Horigan estimates that his shop has 99 percent of the original parts. 30, 1946, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., Mr. ''We don't replace anything unless it's for safety reasons or it's totally missing.'' Most Original Parts in HandĪlthough the Enola Gay has been moved four times since it was placed in storage on Aug. ''Our job is not only to save the artifact, but we have to save the technology, too,'' Mr. Even parts that will not be visible in the finished restoration are not overlooked. They fret over which solvent will best restore the plane's aluminum skin to shiny newness and the exact words and numbers stamped on the backs of the cockpit dials. ''It's not surprising considering they were the country most affected,'' he said.įor the restorers, two Smithsonian workers and two unpaid volunteers, the goal is simply to make the Enola Gay historically accurate. He said Japanese visitors to the Garbar Facility were particularly interested in work on the plane. Harwit held out the possibility that there may eventually be Japanese involvement in displaying the Enola Gay. ''It's neither going to be an apology nor is it going to be any kind of hurrah,'' he said. Harwit said, ''by focusing really on what happened and how it was perceived by different groups, setting it into its historical context as well as one can with more than 40 years of hindsight. ''I think one has to be careful and display it in a dispassionate fashion,'' Dr. Truman's military advisers warned that hundreds of thousands of American lives could be lost if an invasion of Japan were not forestalled, others believe that Japan would have capitulated soon under the onslaught of conventional bombs raining down from the Enola Gay's sister ships.
Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan. Harwit said he viewed the Enola Gay as an educational tool to teach the public about the issues that went into President Harry S. The restoration will cost about $1 million in all, he said.ĭr.
The museum is negotiating with a couple of private groups for contributions that could speed the project. Martin Harwit, an astrophysicist who became director of the Air and Space Museum last year, said that at the present pace, restoration of the Enola Gay, which began four years ago, would probably not be complete until 1994. It will probably be trucked in pieces to an extension of the National Air and Space Museum that is planned for either Dulles International Airport in Virginia or Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Maryland and reassembled for display along with the space shuttle Enterprise and other air and space craft too large for the main museum on Washington's Mall.ĭr. But the Enola Gay is not intended to fly again. Horigan said, only the age of the plane's parts will prevent it from flying. ''There is always controversy when you talk about nuclear weapons.'' Use as Educational Tool