In 2004 the Department of Energy repaired and repainted the artifact at its Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.Ĭlick here to return to the World War II Gallery. When constructed in 1945, the "Little Boy" on display was an operational weapon, but it has been completely demilitarized for display purposes. Weighing about 9,000 pounds, it produced an explosive force equal to 20,000 tons of TNT. The result of the Manhattan Project, begun in June 1942, "Little Boy" was a gun-type weapon, which detonated by firing one mass of uranium down a cylinder into another mass to create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. It was delivered by the B-29 Enola Gay (on display at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum), it detonated at an altitude of 1,800 feet over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. is shown here on exhibit at the Smithsonians new UdvarHazy Center. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. The Mk I bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy," was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The cancellation of the National Air and Space Museums (NASM) original Enola Gay exhibition in January 1995 may constitute the worst tragedy to befall the public presentation of history in the United States in this generation. Front cover: The huge B-29 bomber Enola Gay, which dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. The Enola Gay ( / nol /) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets.