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While the B-29 was sophisticated for its day-fully pressurized crew compartments, trick bombing radar, remote-controlled gun turrets with computing sights-it cost a staggering five times as much as a Lanc, over $500,000 apiece, which also would have been much easier to modify. It was a display of nationalism by US General Leslie Groves who thought it “beyond comprehension to use a British plane to deliver an American A-bomb” (he wrote his own book, Now It Can Be Told, still in print in many different versions, even a Kindle edition) that tipped the scales in favor of the B-29 being selected over the British Avro Lancaster. The book was spawned by a commemorative booklet compiled by a former airplane commander for the 50th anniversary reunion of the 509th in 1995 and an updated version in 1997, both of which manifested that the complete story hadn’t yet been told, that there was material “out there” for research, and that someone had better do the job while eyewitnesses and other contemporary sources were still around. Also discussed are the Los Alamos test program, airbases, crews, accidents, and various classes of atomic bombs carried. Written by a military man and staying away from the moral dimensions of the story, this book is the first to examine this particular modification in detail, covering conception and development and then operational service with the 509th Composite Group at Wendover Army Air Field, Tinian, and Roswell. “The B-29 has as many bugs as the entomological department of the Smithsonian.” -Curtis LeMay, who commanded B-29 combat operations against Japan Two survive to this day and their names- Enola Gay and Bockscar-are inseparable from a pivotal and infamous chapter in human history, the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that contributed to ending the war by causing incomprehensible damage. Of the 65 planes so modified between 19, 53 served with the first nuclear weapons unit, the 509th Composite Group. Nicknamed after the codeword for the project (a shortening of the original moniker “The Silver Plated Project”), B-29 Superfortress bombers in Silverplate configuration were the first planes ever to carry nuclear payloads.
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The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs