My family and I last week went and checked out the *new* Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. Which was really excellent btw

Enola Gay is there...in all her glory. She is polished and shined up and honestly has been restored to pristine condition. If you are unaware or have forgotten exactly who Enola Gay is and what her role was in our world history here is a little news clip for your reading...it also highlights her controversary:
Enola Gay display angers victims

The museum has many war planes on display. All which I am sure have had their fair share of destruction and death. There are also many other varieties of aircraft on display too..military planes were not the only focus.

Enola Gay is mentioned on her labeling as being the one that dropped The Bomb. Yet other than that there is nothing more to distinguish her from any of the others. Only the knowledge of what this plane was used for highlights her to the viewer. I have pictures of her if anyone is interested and would like a visual addition to the debate.

Question for debate....
Do you believe the Enola Gay should be on display at all and should she be displayed without much reference, tribute or recognition to her role in history and those effected by it?

Do you feel exhibiting Enola Gay without highlighting her past is insensitive or do you feel this is appropriate for the museum's focus?

In the sense that Iron Maidens, the rack, the thumbscrew and the guillotine are all historical artifacts, yes, there is a place for the Enola Gay in the exhibit.

The fact is, the Enola Gay isn't just another airplane. However, the Smithsonian Institute has the right to display the airplane in the way that it chooses; it doesn't mean that I agree with it. But it's reasonable to assume that they're not going to want peaceniks hanging around protesting.

But in the current climate of this country, a vehicle that carried an instrument of destructive force of a magnitude never seen before is a very popular thing to see, regardless of how many non-combatants died as a result. The deaths are just a useless statistic, I guess.

It is absolutely appropriate for the Enola Gay to be on display in the Air and Space museum for her historic contributions to the ending of a war against a tyrannical enemy every bit as much as it is appropriate that the final resting place of the of the majority of the 1,177 members of the crew of the USS Arizona be honored as a memorial to their service to this nation in Pearl Harbor. To compare the Enola Gay to objects of torture is simply wrong. It was rather a necessary tool that helped to end a terrible war.

Gosh, Aquilla, you mean the number of men who died on the Arizona is not a useless statistic?

Neither is including the number of lives lost when the Enola Gay dropped its payload. A life is a life. How about tens of thousands of lives?

Paladin, if you want to feel guilty about ending WWII the way we did, and the Enola Gay was a big part of that, go right ahead. The only person thus far in this thread who has claimed the numbers of dead are "useless" is you.

From Bucket's link.....


Seems reasonable to me.

I don't see why Enola Gay should not be exhibited.

After all, even the opponents of the holocaust support keeping Auschwitz and other concentration camps open, if for somewhat different reasons. Since I very much doubt the Smithsonian exhibit attempts to glorify what Enola Gay did, visitors who prefer to be reminded of the victims can think of their experiences of being near to the plane and can do so in their own way, much like modern visitors to Auschwitz can do so with grief, sober reflection or neo-Nazi pride.

It's not about the plane, it's about the people - both victims and visitors.

It's called irony, Aquilla. It is a literary tool. I think you already know how I feel about it as evidenced in the Atomic Bombing thread.

As I said, the museum can do what it pleases because it is THEIR exhibit. Maybe I should just be thankful that they haven't made a shrine of it.

I agree strongly with aquilla.

There wasent "japanese non-combantants" in japan at the time. The whole country was pratically a military..Thats why the bomb was dropped it saved lives on both sides. Raids on tokyo produced more victims than this bomb did.

But not to get too far off topic, yes this should be displayed, not only as a piece of history but as a piece of the changing times.

This argument is stupid, why have gun museums when guns have produced more deaths than this bomb has over time.

Also, the bomb killed the people, not the plane.

As a professional Historian, I am surprised by the vitriol about this decision. The exhibit was tasteful and respectful, and even spoke about some of the controvercy regarding the decision to drop the bomb. It was not a glorified excersise in flag waving or self-justification, it was an exhibit of a critical moment in history.

History is about what happened, not about what happened that we personally agree with. The Enola Gay was a singularily important aircraft, as it was the first aircraft ever to be deployed with, and drop in any capacity, an atomic weapon. Everyone knew its name, and the name of its pilot, it gained celebrity (or notoriety?) because of this, nobody can deny that. So why on earth would they not display it?

Yes, the Enola Gay should be exhibited, and the results of dropping the weapon it carried over Hiroshima should be documented in the form of how many lives the bomb took, just as the USS Arizona has documented how many lives were lost aboard it as a result of the Japanese attack. Japanese lives mattered, too.

But it's not my decision, nor in my power to change the museum's policy. And my opinion on this thread apparently isn't worth enough to buy a cup of coffee. Let the thread, therefore, be filled with those who glorify historical implements of war and the mighty United States' bully power over the world. Find someone else foolish enough to speak on the side of non-violence, because I tire of pro-war, pro-violence rationalizations.

For peace to be achieved, it must be the journey as well as the destination.

I am sure the 400,000 POW's in Japanese camps were thankful for the Enola Gay's payload. (28 % of Japan's POW's died in captivity). I am sure the Chinese people (10-30 million who were killed by the Japanese between 1933-1945) were thankful for the Enola Gay's payload, I am sure the Filipino, Korean and Chinese "comfort" women were thankful for the Enola Gay's payload. I am sure the 100's of thousands of American soldiers, who would not have to face another Okinawa, were thankful for the Enola Gay's payload. Those who hate war should realize that it was the Enola Gay's payload that ended it. Those victims of Hiroshima should ask why they let their government engage in a world war. I agree the statistics should be included of deaths caused by the atomic bomb contrasted with the estimated lives saved.

I believe the exibit does state how many Japanese lives were lost, did you think it would not have? We are not debating the morality of dropping the bomb here, we are debating the morality of creating a historical exibit which displays the Enola Gay, and shows a fairly accurate, balanced view of the event.

No matter if you are for or against the atomic bombing, you cannot deny its importance, so unless one is trying to rewrite history, being pacifist or not is entirely irrelevant. Calling the exibit pro-violence is silly in the extreme. Are military museums necessarily pro violence? Are holocaust museums pro-holocaust?

A museum's job is (or should be) to recount the past in as objective a manner as possible. I see no evidence here this this is not what has happened with this exhibit.

This plane and it’s mission are a part of history and should be on display. The mission was to end a brutal war and save American lives and it was a resounding success. This should be noted as well. An invasion of Japan would have cost us 10s of thousands of casualties and certainly resulted in more deaths on both sides.

No honest Vermillion it does not state this.

The plane is hardly glorified or being highlighted as some great instrument of death or triumph of American monstrosity. There are heaps of planes there...many of them military and many of then not even American..they have British, French, Korean, Russian. None of these planes are being highlighted for their more sinister roles in our history..but instead the focus is on airflight itself and the museum shows many alternative means that people have used aircraft and yes that includes war.

They had kamikazes at the museum too and they did not give a death toll of them either with the exception of how many were believed to have been used in the war.

My father who was alive and living in London during WWII was actually most moved by the British plane..The Hurricane..which in his own words he claimed saved his life. Yet if you think about it.. it is not that plane that saved my father's life..it is the men that designed it and made it and piloted it.

History is so often remembered like that..Enola Gay is nothing more than a plane..she was made by men..she was piloted by men...she birthed the atomic bomb because men desired her to. She is a tangible, representation of our past lives..but she holds no responsibility to it. So often we attach and allow our actions to be carried by others..things..we choose to dehumanize them. The Nazi's atrocities turn into visuals of death camps and gas chambers and takes away the human element..takes away the startling fact that men designed these objects and men carried their designs out into actions. The holocaust becomes some kind of non-human impersonal idea. (which the holocaust museum completely rids you of) WWII becomes some kind of battle of the bots..with machinery and technology foreshadowing the human role in it all.

I found the way in which Enola Gay was displayed...as merely a technological thing..as an aircraft, as nothing more than machinery very appropriate in my opinion. I think if you are going to highlight the nuclear bombings of Japan you should do so without blame or responsibility being lain on mindless machinery.

I believe the exhibition should be allowed, and that it is indeed very appropriate. At the same time, we should bemoan the fact that such a plane had to be created in the first place. The loss of any life is tragic, and while the Japanese were the enemy, I don't believe that we should callously disregard the lives of those who were instantly vaporized, severly burned, or who had their skins literally falling off of them. Rather than glorify the bombing, we should have pictures of the victims and other people involved to tell the whole story. Along with those pictures we should have articles about Pearl Harbor and the diplomatic failures and embargo which eventually lead to the war in the first place.

I would add pictures of emaciated POW's liberated from Japanese camps.With the notice that hundreds were dying daily, at the end of the war, from hunger and mistreatment.

Yes, add those two and lots more, and you have the makings for a great display that asks all of us some disturbing questions that all of mankind needs to answer.

The Enola Gay exhibit is at the new Air and Space Museum Annex. It is there for it significance in aviation history and no politically correct mumbo-jumbo should be attached to it.

The only thing that makes it important is that it dropped the first atomic bomb. It wasn't the first B-29 to take flight, it didn't travel around the world, or make the first trans-Atlantic flight. How does honoring the plane that killed thousands not have political ramifications?? How does that not show that through the use of ever increasingly technology, that we could wipe ourselves off of the earth if we so desired? It's something out of "Dr. Strangelove" that we would even idolize the thing enough to put it on display.

It ended the war. That is what makes it special. No I don't think the Japanese protestors deserve any special recognition in the exhibit. I suppose we could start with an apology from the Japanese for all the atrocities during the war, then we'll talk. They have not shown the least bit of remorse.

The responsibility for the death of the Japanese people lies with the arrogant and obtuse attitude of their emperor. Period. Ofcourse the plane should be displayed.