Enola Gay lives

[Saint_Proverbius]

<strong>[Community -> Update]</strong>

Per this <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/953981.asp">this news item</a>, the <b>Enola Gay</b> has been restored and will be on display at the Smithsonian.
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<br><blockquote>THE RESTORATION, the result of 300,000 hours of work over nearly 20 years, made the B-29 bomber look as it did on Aug. 6, 1945 when it dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
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<br> Over the years, some parts of the Enola Gay were replaced in normal use and others were lost or taken by collectors, said Dik Daso, the Smithsonian?s curator of modern military aircraft.
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<br> The Enola Gay has been restored so completely that it would probably start if fueled, officials said. But because components are so old it, wouldn?t be flight worthy. Curators restored each part to the way it looked on ?mission day,? down to particular radio tubes used at the time, Daso said.</blockquote>
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<br>Bummer about the flight thing.
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<br>Spotted this at <A href="http://www.shacknews.com">Shacknews</a>.

[LlamaGod]

I'm curious as to why this was posted on Shacknews and then here, I can see the retro aspect of it, but it's just a plane..

As for it's name, I can hear some 'haha gay' jokes comin' up.

[Briosafreak]

Maybe they could help Interplay in restoring the forums, at the moment i`m writing this they have lost an entire month worth of posts and PMs...

[Strap]

I want a peice of that plane... with all its atomic bomb dropping fury.

[SuperH]

I'm curious as to why this was posted on Shacknews and then here, I can see the retro aspect of it, but it's just a plane..

As for it's name, I can hear some 'haha gay' jokes comin' up.

Just a plane that dropped the First Nuke Ever. Well, the first of two nukes dropped on people, that is.

[Silver]

I don't know if the fact even crossed your mind that this plane that brought doom to millions and took the lifes of thousands should be a little more respected. FFs, why even restore this plane? To serve as a testimony for genocide? Nice.

[Killzig]

Ring-a-ring-o'-geranium,
A pocket full of uranium,
Hiro, shima,
All fall down

[morris]

I don't know if the fact even crossed your mind that this plane that brought doom to millions and took the lifes of thousands should be a little more respected. FFs, why even restore this plane? To serve as a testimony for genocide? Nice.

Actually, this plane was used to drop doom to millions and took the lives of thousands of.... yes... genocidal people. Don't forget that we were fighting the Nazi's with this plane. While yes, it did kill a lot of people (yes, even a lot of civilians), and it shouldn't be honored .... it should probably be remembered...
don't get the wrong idea... it was the one killing the genociders... we were defending ourselves.

[LlamaGod]

I can understand the whole dropping the bomb part, but I think we should really be more interested in the bomb and the bombing then the plane that carried it. It's like being a lollipop fan and being excited because someone repainted the first can to hold a lollipop in it.

Mabe i'm just too...I dunno.

[Mad Max RW]

Why shouldn't they restore it? The Air and Space Museum and other wings of the Smithsonian have all sorts of nasty stuff from war. They even have replicas of the original atomic bombs used at Hiroshima/Nagasaki. If you don't like the plane you don't like 90% of the rest of their stuff. Before you want to erase history like so many ignorant assholes all over the world, try visiting the museums and gain an appreciation for what they really are. Not a "testimony for genocide" but something even a child could figure out.

[Jimmyjay86]

Regardless of what it did, the plane is a memorial to either lives lost or lives saved. It should be there to make people think of the extreme violence that war brings usually on the innocent. This isn't in the same vein as a memorial to Hitler who killed more people than those bombs ever did. I hope it makes people think that war is the very last resort and sometimes bad deeds need to be done to end wars.

[Calal]

Actually the Japanese were not Nazi' s but Axis allies, quite a difference. Same thing for Italy at that time; they were called Fascists and were only allied with the Nazi' s. I don' t see the point of so many people nowadays throwing it all on one heap because there' s a world of difference between all these factions' beliefs. Don' t start to assume that I' m talking right what they did wrong though.

Indeed, the restoring of the Enola Gay is a good thing. In fact the preservance and restoring of all things historical is a must, since most people nowadays seem to have forgotten how we came to be to what we are now. Or forget the mistakes we made back then.
To me the plane itself stands for the turning point in humankinds history and warfare where one can decide over the fate of thousands in a flinch of a second and the horror that it brings with it. Wether this is a bad thing or a good thing depends on your own interpretation (but I assume most will see it the bad way and I can' t blame them for that). A last rhetorical question: would it be better to 'forget' about the things we did as humankind and never look back or should we have a rememberance and reference for the generations to come?

[Jimmyjay86]

Actually the Japanese were not Nazi' s but Axis allies, quite a difference. Same thing for Italy at that time; they were called Fascists and were only allied with the Nazi' s.

Yes, I think what morris was saying was that the plane was also used in the European theater. I would hope everyone knows that the Japanese weren't Nazis.

[LlamaGod]

Hitler Anime, here I come.

[OnTheBounce]

Yes, I think what morris was saying was that the plane was also used in the European theater. I would hope everyone knows that the Japanese weren't Nazis.

If that's the case morris needs to go and check his facts. The B-29s were used exclusively in the Pacific Theater. The B-17 and other, shorter ranged bombers had all the range needed for operations in NW Europe and the Mediterranean.

I have mixed feelings about the Enola Gay, myself. She's a machine that played a vital role in a pivotal, historical event. One that spawned a new age. She's also testament to the fact that people are willing to go overboard when flexing muscle. After all, Japan had tried to surrender 11 months before those two bombs were dropped, and her fortunes had declined considerably since then. Not to mention that the people that were killed in those two cities -- by and large -- had nothing to do w/Japan's depredations in the Pacific. In that sense, the Enola Gay is also testament to "Total War" in action. (The idea that all members of a nation are resources to be neutralized in the course of war, from soldiers on the front lines, to factory workers cranking out munitions, to the farmers feeding them.)

One thing I would caution about is the idea that restoring the Enola Gay somehow preserves history. It doesn't. She is one trivial machine used in the broad course of events. While knowing her name might get you some money on Jeopardy, it doesn't impart an understanding of the course of events that led to her mission, nor those events which it touched off.

OTB

[LlamaGod]

Still wondering why this was posted on Shacknews.

[morris]

Yes, I think what morris was saying was that the plane was also used in the European theater. I would hope everyone knows that the Japanese weren't Nazis.

If that's the case morris needs to go and check his facts. The B-29s were used exclusively in the Pacific Theater. The B-17 and other, shorter ranged bombers had all the range needed for operations in NW Europe and the Mediterranean.

I have mixed feelings about the Enola Gay, myself. She's a machine that played a vital role in a pivotal, historical event. One that spawned a new age. She's also testament to the fact that people are willing to go overboard when flexing muscle. After all, Japan had tried to surrender 11 months before those two bombs were dropped, and her fortunes had declined considerably since then. Not to mention that the people that were killed in those two cities -- by and large -- had nothing to do w/Japan's depredations in the Pacific. In that sense, the Enola Gay is also testament to "Total War" in action. (The idea that all members of a nation are resources to be neutralized in the course of war, from soldiers on the front lines, to factory workers cranking out munitions, to the farmers feeding them.)

One thing I would caution about is the idea that restoring the Enola Gay somehow preserves history. It doesn't. She is one trivial machine used in the broad course of events. While knowing her name might get you some money on Jeopardy, it doesn't impart an understanding of the course of events that led to her mission, nor those events which it touched off.

OTB

I agree with what you said about restoring the Enola Gay...
My comments before were in response to claiming that the US bombing japan ws genocidal ("To serve as a testimony for genocide"), and I was trying to put it into perspective that the US was battling Nazi's, who were in fact genocidal. And if you think that the Japanese regime wasn't genocidal either, just ask the Manchurians about how Japanese treated them during the war.
I wasn't referring specifically to the plane with my comment, or even this type of plane, but generally the americans.
I could go on, but I think I've already opened a bigger can of worms than I intended...

With that said, I think that the Enola Gay can be remembered without necessarily being restored.

[OnTheBounce]

My comments before were in response to claiming that the US bombing japan ws genocidal ("To serve as a testimony for genocide"), and I was trying to put it into perspective that the US was battling Nazi's, who were in fact genocidal...I wasn't referring specifically to the plane with my comment, or even this type of plane, but generally the americans.

Ah, I see. That makes a bit more sense now. However, I'm always cautious of the "In order to fight a devil you have to be a devil" mentality. It's a very dangerous and slippery slope, that one. There has to be a limit to war, or it's not war, it's slaughter. Which is what the Doctrine of Total War really was.

And if you think that the Japanese regime wasn't genocidal either, just ask the Manchurians about how Japanese treated them during the war.

Or how the Chinese population at large suffered at the hands of Water Purification Unit 731 which was a front for biological warfare. Believe me, you'll find no argument with me about these things. However, I'm very slow to give a green light for things based on what the other side was doing at the time, especially when they're not directly related. For instance, it's one thing to say that X troops in Y area should be excused for having shot enemies who were trying to surrender when the day before they had been ambushed while accepting a feigned surrender. It is quite another thing, however, to say that Auschwitz justified Dresden, or that Nanking justified Nagasaki. This is especially true when one takes into account that one side in some cases had no idea what the other was doing, and in cases of known attrocities had no idea of the scope.

With that said, I think that the Enola Gay can be remembered without necessarily being restored.

Here we find ourself in agreement. Although I would like to add/reiterate that rather than simply remembering the Enola Gay, people should undertake to understand the wider scope that brought her into existance, and what she in turn brought into existance.

I could go on, but I think I've already opened a bigger can of worms than I intended...

This is DaC. No can of worms to big for us here. (Er...provided we can keep from calling each other "dumb fuck" and "swell guy"...)

Cheers,

OTB

[S4ur0n27]

You can never excuse a slaughter like Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Neither can you forget Auswitz, or the KKK, or the british army in South Africa, or the 24 millions russian killed by the Germans, or the killings the Spanish did in South America, or the amerindians killed by France or UK or USA, or the farmers killed by the natives here, or whatever.

Just to say that there is no country better justified for killing people than another one, and that I think we shouldn't have spent thousands of dollars to repair a unusable plane, but maybe to build a monument to the dead japanese in the 2 cities, or to any all the dead innocent people during the war, althougt there already are a lot of those statue around the world.

They are useless anyway. If my father died in the war, I wouldn't want him to be remembered, I'd want him to rest in peace. We should only observe silence for the deads

Sorry for my shabby english.

[Megatron]

haha 'gay'