Seconds later the airplane was severely jolted twice by shock waves. A few minutes later a brilliant flash lit the interior of the Enola Gay. Paul Tibbets, quickly banked right 155 degrees in a steep turn.
Suddenly relieved of five tons of weight from the first atomic bomb to be used in a war, the airplane lurched up several dozen feet, and its pilot, Cmdr. on August 6, 1945, Major Thomas Ferebee, the bombardier aboard the Enola Gay, released “Little Boy” - a blunt-nosed, gun-metal-gray object - from an altitude of 31,600 feet over Hiroshima.
