During the Smithsonian disputes, peace groups and historians provided a spirited and informed critique of the necessity for the Hiroshima bombing and highlighting its human costs. government’s Smithsonian Institution help to clarify the bases for this stubborn defense. The heated controversies surrounding the opening in 19 of bomb-related exhibits at the National Air and Space Museum of the U.S. Over the nearly six decades since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a substantial majority of Americans has continued to defend the action. "I hope it's never used again.The Enola Gay, the Atomic Bomb and American War Memory "I said the minute I saw it, We're going home,' because if one bomb did that much damage, the war was going to be over, he said. Three days after Scheffe's trip over Hiroshima, the United States dropped a bomb on Nagasaki and the Japanese surrendered, something Scheffe said he expected as soon as he saw the damage in Hiroshima. Then he and his crew took pictures of targets of opportunity in Japan. Instead, he entered the Army Air Corps because he was promised that if he passed the physical, he could train as an officer.Īfter training, he ended up in a photography unit making maps of India for six months. Then I wouldn't have been over there getting shot at, he said. He soon went home to start Scheffe Prescription Shops which he still runs at age 86.īefore entering the service, he participated in Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Oklahoma and was offered a job in the pharmacy at Fort Sill. However, as soon as they returned to their base in Guam, their crew chief yelled that he heard they had taken pictures of the aftermath of the atomic bomb. When Scheffe and his crew returned to Tinian Airfield in the Mariana Islands, they were checked for radiation and told not to talk about the mission. The pictures later made their way to the public, along with some taken by a tail gunner on the Enola Gay. Superiors warned Scheffe not to fly through the mushroom cloud, so he circled it for the photographer. "When we were about 50 miles out, we could see a blip on the horizon, he said. An hour later, the Enola Gay took off and was told while in the air to go to Hiroshima.Īn hour after the Enola Gay took off, Scheffe followed in the Yokohama Yo-Yo. The first three went to different targets to decide where conditions were right for the Enola Gay to drop the bomb. "We were told we were going to photograph the dropping of a new type of bomb and that's all, he said. Scheffe's assignment started as a secret and he and his crew were confined to their quarters for several days before the flight. "We could see lots of smoke and lots of fire, he said.
The plane, called an F-13 because of its modification, circled the mushroom cloud that was the bomb's aftermath. Smoke and fire covered the Japanese city as Scheffe and crew flew over in a special B-29 altered to take aerial photos, the Enid pharmacist said. Scheffe and his 10-member crew documented in photographs the secret mission to drop the first of two atomic bombs that ended World War II. 6, 1945.īut the world remembers the pictures taken from the Yokohama Yo-Yo, piloted by Enid resident Walter Scheffe 59 years ago today over Hiroshima.
ENID Few may remember the name of the plane that took off an hour after the Enola Gay on Aug.