The Enola Gay Controversy: A Historian’s Point of View

Koree Conley
12/12/2012
Word Count: 2,525

The Enola Gay Controversy: A Historian’s Point of View Historians today all too often have to play the role of the “bad guy” while trying to keep public history accurate. It seems as if publishing any type of article or exhibit will lead to some type of disagreement and debacle with politicians, veterans, families involved in that particular subject, then eventually the general public as a whole. This was seen in 1994 though 1995 during the Enola Gay controversy between the National Air and Space Museum, their director and curators when politicians, and former World War II veterans and their families disagreed with the plans for an exhibit on the Enola Gay. Because of the disagreement and the museum being unable to find a “happy medium,” the exhibit was canceled and replaced with a much smaller one. This act outraged many historians who felt that the Smithsonian Institution had forfeited the right to educate and inform an audience consisting of millions of tourists worldwide about a defining experience that helped shape this century.1
On January 30th, 1995 Martian Harwit, the National Air and Space Museum, or NASM, director, announced the cancelation of the exhibit “The Last Act: The Atomic Bob and the End of World War II.” This exhibit was at the center of a yearlong controversy about the Enola Gay, the United States Air Force B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb known under the code name “Little Boy” on the Japanese city Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. This act was known as the act that ended World War II and saved the lives of many American soldiers that otherwise were to invade Japan. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay sated that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was a “peace keeper…the harbinger of a cold war kept form getting hot.”2 While others believe that it was the beginning of a new holocaust due to it killing over 200,000 people, most of them civilians, not to mention the long term illnesses caused by the radiation put out by the atomic bomb. 3 Though the dropping of the atomic bomb did end World War II, it started the Cold War and the nuclear age. It seems as if the Enola Gay was made to be the center of controversy involving political beings, military veterans and historians. After Pilot Paul Tibbots used this B-29 to drop “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, one year later Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico proposed a bill wanting the Enola Gay to be displayed in the Atomic Bomb National Monument in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This action was the start of years of controversy and hostility between historians and veterans. Veterans were outraged that Hatch would even think to propose such a bill, due to the Enola Gay already being property of the Smithsonian, where their beloved B-29 bomber sat outside near a runway at the Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, to rust and rot away from 1953 until 1960. This was due to the National Air Museum, the father to the National Air and Space Museum, having no place to put it due to it’s massive size, with a 141 foot wingspan, and not having enough funding to restore it. A 1956 newspaper once wrote, “The once bright exterior is dull. The propellers are rusting, windows have been broken out, instruments smashed and control surface fabric torn.”4 After seven years of wasting and rotting away, the Enola Gay started being restored to it’s original state. In 1964 the museum began planning a gallery large enough to hold this massive bomber, and in 1971, the NASM’s funding was finally approved for this new building. Curators and the director of the National Air and Space Museum, Martian Harwit, who was appointed his position in 1987, decided in 1988 that they were going to make an exhibit involving the Enola Gay for the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima. Going into the writing of the script, the curators knew that this exhibit was going to be controversial no matter what they decided to include in it. In a 1988 newsletter Martian Harwit explained that he had received a “steady stream of letters” involving the Enola Gay. He stated that many of the letters written to him were questioning him on why the B-29 was not in an exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum, the writers, mostly veterans of the war, asked Harwit if the museum was keeping the bomber out of sight on purpose to try to “rewrite history.” Harwit informed the readers of this newsletter that the Enola Gay would be placed in an exhibit that will inform the public of the strategic bombing of World War II. The exhibit would go into depth of what strategic bombing was and how it was used.5 When the announcement was made to the general public that the famous B-29 would be incorporated in an exhibit it was expected that the exhibit would bring respect to the bomber and would be a place of honor for the American veterans. In January 1994 the script for the Enola Gay exhibit, “The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb, and the Origins of the Cold War,” was completed. Inside the proposal it was stated that “The museum hopes that the proposed exhibition will contribute to a more profound discussion of the atomic bombings among the general public of the United States, Japan, and elsewhere.” The proposal issued by the museum stated that the exhibit’s primary goal is to “encourage visitors to make a thoughtful and balanced re-examination of the atomic bombing” from the decision of political and military leaders deciding to drop the bomb or not to the suffering that he bomb had caused on the Japanese and the long-term issues caused by the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 6 When the Smithsonian Institution released the script, they also released the blue prints of the exhibit which included 5,500 square feet of space and six different rooms. Two of these room ideas are what started petitioning of 8,000 war veterans, and the upset of United States politicians. These two room were titles “The Decision to Drop the Bomb” and “Ground Zero: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” “The Decision to Drop the Bomb” upset World War II veterans because it asked the question of whether or not the United States needed to drop an atomic bomb on Japan to end the war, and if the casualties of dropping the bomb would have evened out with the casualties of having to invade Japan. “Ground Zero: Hiroshima and Nagasaki” was to bring the emotional impact to the visitors of this exhibit. It consisted of photos of the devastation caused by the atomic bombing, photos of corpses and disfigurement, and eyewitness accounts by survivors of the bombing. For this exaction of this exhibit there would be a parental discretion warning due to the graphic displays. Due to the amount of questions raised within this exhibit and amount of graphic photos used to provoke emotions in the visitors, this exhibit was thought to be pro-Japanese, thus anti-patriotic. Those opposing the “The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb, and the Origins of the Cold War,” felt that the historians that had worked on it has put their own interpretation in the exhibit and did not state the facts. Military historians called the Enola Gay a prop in an exhibit about Ground Zero. In March of 1994, the Air Force Association launched a campaign against the Enola Gay exhibit. Two of the biggest opposing forces of the exhibit were The Air Force Association, and The American Legion. The Air Force Association, other war veterans, and some politicians felt that the exhibit was dishonoring towards the veterans due to it questioning the motives for using the bombs and whether or not it was necessary to use them. Paul Tibbets called the exhibit a “package of insults” and would “engender the aura of evil in which the airplane is cast.” He stated that he wanted the Enola Gay to be “preserved and displayed properly—and alone, for all the world to see.”7 In the petition signed by 8,000 World War II veterans, they declared that the National Air and Space Museum either “display the aircraft properly or turn it over to a museum that will do so.”8 United States Senators even got involved in the discussion of whether or not the proposed exhibit should come to be. Some were even against the Enola Gay even being put into the museum all together. One congressman, Frank Thompson stated” I don’t think we should be very proud of [the use of atomic weapons], at least it would offend me seeing it in a museum.”9 Newspapers and magazines helped with the spread of the controversy, such as the Newsweek article “The New Battle of Hiroshima,” this article did not criticize the exhibit, it only informed its readers of the controversy. 10 The Richmond-Times Dispatch though, did take a stance on the controversy and persuaded the readers of the article to take the side of the military and to be against the Smithsonian’s exhibit.11 In September of 1994, the United States Senate decided as a whole that the script produced was offensive to many World War II veterans and should be revised.
After receiving criticism of the exhibit, In April 16, 1994 Martian Harwit appointed a committee called “Tiger Team” to look back over the draft, consider the criticism brought to it and think of a better way to put forth the information of the exhibit that will keep criticism low.12 The committee finished the second draft on May 31, 1994 and titled it “The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II.” This draft was also seen as dishonoring to the war veterans and contained the historian’s interpretation on the subject matter. The new draft of the exhibit did the opposite effect than it was made to do; it brought more attention to the matter, thus bringing more criticism and objection. The constant objection to the museum’s exhibit that consisted of facts eventually got under his skin and brought out defensiveness in Harwit and other historians. By this time historians had had enough. Curator Tom Crouch stated in a letter to Harwit “Do you want to do an exhibit intended to make our veterans feel good, or do you want an exhibition that will lead our visitors to think about the consequences of the atomic bombing in Japan? Frankly, I don’t think we can do both.”13 Crouch’s statement is a great summary of most of the historian’s feelings of the controversy at the time. Is a museum supposed to educate, or is it supposed to memorialize? In his article about the Enola Gay controversy historian Richard H. Kohn stated that “exhibits cannot combine commemoration and celebration with scholarship.”14
On January 30, 1995, after a year of discussion and controversy and debate secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Michael Hayman announced the cancelation of “The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II,” and replace it with a smaller exhibit simply about the plane itself. He also promised to revise any exhibits that have angered viewers in the past.15 This decision angered historians as they felt that they had been defeated, Historian Richard H. Kohn used the term “forfeited” when speaking about the National Air and Space Museum canceling the exhibit. The public debate over whether or not the museum should host this exhibit or not made historians seem rude, unpatriotic, and unappreciative of the sacrifice that American soldiers made. If a movie were to be made of this event, the historians and National Air and Space Museum would be seen as the antagonist. This controversy made it clear that as long as there are enough people whose feelings may be a little hurt by the decisions that they or their family had made in history, they can simply keep it from being taught to others. It does not matter if the information historians are trying to educate the public with is accurate or not, if it has a chance of hurting someone’s feelings a controversy will be made of it and the historians will lose. In Kohn’s article he provided a quote by George Orwell that has been proven true in this controversy “those who control the past control the future, and those that control the future control the past.”16 In this case the one controlling the past and future was the American government and military leaders, as they are the ones who chose to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and they are ones who chose to keep the images of the destruction caused by the bomb out of the Smithsonian Institution.
This controversy involving the B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, proved to historians that no matter how hard they work, or how accurate the information is, in America, if the information is seen as hurtful or distasteful to the American government or the military, it will be discontinued. The historians will be seen as non-patriotic to their country, and will not receive respect from the public. The choice of the Smithsonian Institution to not follow through with the exhibit that had been planned for seven years showed the United States government that if they do not like something being taught in a museum about their actions, they can simply debate the exhibit long enough the museum chooses to abort the exhibit all together. The job of a historian as a citizen is to save their country from itself.17 Meaning that the job of a historian is to make sure the citizens of their country have the chance to learn of their country’s mistakes, and be aware of its government’s decisions and the repercussions of that decision, no matter how hard the job is, it must be done.