Would it end in disaster for the crew in Japan? Eight downed American airmen had been beheaded by the Japanese a few weeks before. 13, the world's first atomic attack, would go. 6, 1945, 75 years ago Thursday, no one was sure how Special Bombing Mission No. Tibbets Jr., 30, had handpicked the airplane on the assembly line in Nebraska three months before and had just had his mother's name, 'Enola Gay,' painted in black letters on the nose.Īs the plane rumbled down the airstrip at over 100 mph, he had his lucky cigarette case with him in one pocket, and a box containing 12 cyanide capsules in another. 'Dimples Eight Two' weighed 150,000 pounds, and with fuel for the long flight to Hiroshima, 12 men on board, and a five-ton uranium bomb in the bay, the B-29 was 15,000 pounds overweight.