It’s Time for the Enola Gay Exhibit
To Confront the Hiroshima Reality
Win Without War

“The people aboard the Enola Gay dropped the bomb from a great height,
so they couldn’t see the people going about their lives below.
If they could have seen people’s faces,
I wonder if they could have gone through with it.” 
— Shintaro Fukuhara, organizer of A-bomb site tours.

(August 6, 2023) — An artifact of profound significance sits as part of an incredible display of history at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum — the Enola Gay.

But this Boeing B-29 Superfortress is not just an exhibit; it’s key to one of the most devastating events in human history: the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

For too long, the portrayal of the Enola Gay has focused on its technological prowess and its place in aviation history. But there’s a crucial chapter missing from this narrative — the immediate aftermath of its mission and the tens of thousands of lives lost.

With that in mind, it’s clear that the National Air and Space Museum’s exhibit on the Enola Gay is glaringly incomplete.

Museums aren’t just there for awe, but for context. This omission is unacceptable, especially when more than a million people visited the exhibit last year alone. That’s a million opportunities for education and understanding missed.

Today is the 78th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, so people are paying extra attention to it — which gives us a unique moment to press for change. Sign the petition to Lonnie G. Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian, and tell him: It’s time to reckon with the past. The Enola Gay exhibit must mention the casualties at Hiroshima.

THE LETTER

To Lonnie G. Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian:
I urge you to add an acknowledgement of the human casualties of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing to the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center’s Enola Gay exhibit.