The Enola Gay and the 509th Composite Group

Enola Gay
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The 509th Composite Group/509th Bomb Wing

The unit that dropped the atomic bombs was activated at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, Dec. 17, 1944. The crews trained with practice bombs called “pumpkins” because of their size and shape, which was the same as “Fat Man” atomic bomb.

The 509th deployed to Tinian in the Marianas in May 1945. It was a self-contained unit, with personnel strength of about 1770. It consisted of the 393rd Bomber Squadron, the 320th Troop Carrier Squadron, the 390th Air Service Group, the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron, the 1027th Air Materiel Squadron, the 1395th Military Police Company, and the First Ordnance Squadron (in charge of handling the atomic bombs).

After the war, the Group returned to the United States and was assigned to Roswell Army Air Base, N.M. It was redesignated the 509th Bombardment Group in 1946 and the 509th Bombardment Wing in 1947. The heritage was preserved in various locations and missions through the years. In the 1990s, the Air Force assigned all of its B-2 bombers to 509th, based at Whiteman AFB, Mo. At Whiteman, Tibbets was able to visit with pride his grandson, Capt. Paul W. Tibbets IV, a B-2 pilot and commander of the 509th Bomb Group

The Enola Gay Crew Flight Crew

Col. Paul W. Tibbets, 509th commander and pilot
Capt. Robert A. Lewis, co-pilot
Maj. Thomas W. Ferebee, bombardier
Capt. Theodore J. Van Kirk, navigator
S/Sgt. Wyatt E. Duzenbury, flight engineer
Sgt. Robert H. Shumard, assistant flight engineer
Pfc Richard H. Nelson, radio operator
S/Sgt George R. Caron, tail gunner
Sgt. Joseph S. Stiborik, radar operator
Navy Capt. William “Deak” Parsons, weaponeer and ordnance officer
Lt. Jacob Beser, radar countermeasures officer
Lt. Morris R. Jeppson, assistant weaponeer

Ground Crew
T/Sgt. Walter F. McCaleb
Sgt. Leonard W. Markley
Sgt. Jean S. Cooper
Cpl. Frank D. Duffy
Cpl. John E. Jackson
Cpl. Harold R. Olson
Pfc. John J. Lesniewski
Lt. Col. John Porter, maintenance officer

The names on the fuselage

The Enola Gay, on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., bears the same markings that it did in 1945, including the names of the flight crew from the historic mission, stenciled below the copilot’s window. But whereas 12 men were aboard the aircraft for the Hiroshima mission, only nine names are painted on the fuselage.

Three officers—Navy Capt. Deak Parsons, the weaponeer, Lt. Morris Jeppson, the assistant weaponeer, and Lt. Jacob Beser, the radar countermeasures officer—are not on the list. They were mission specialists rather than flight crew members.

Crew notes

Members of the Enola Gay crew had been on Tibbets’s B-17 crew in Europe: bombardier Ferebee (called by Tibbets “the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bombsight”) and navigator Van Kirk.

Among others personally recruited by Tibbets for the 509th were the Enola Gay copilot, Lewis, Caron, tail gunner, Duzenbury, flight engineer, radar specialist Beser, and four members of the Bockscar flight crew: aircraft commander Chuck Sweeney, copilot Don Albury, bombardier Kermit Behan, and navigator James Van Pelt.

Lt. Jacob Beser was the radar countermeasures officer on the Enola Gay at Hiroshima and on Bockscar at Nagasaki, the only person aboard the bombing aircraft on both atomic bomb missions.

The Bockscar Crew

509th and 393rd Reunions

1962    393rd       17-19 August      Chicago, IL              Charles Levy
1965    393rd        6-8 August         New York City, NY Jacob Beser
1970    393rd        6-9 August         Salt Lake City, UT   George Marquardt
1975    509th        6-9 August         San Diego, CA        Raymond Biel/John King
1978    509th        3-6 August         Dallas, TX               John Casey/John King
1980    509th        5-8 August         Washington, DC      Charles McKnight/Jacob Beser
1982    509th     12-15 August         Seattle, WA            Ed Costello (died prior to the Reunion)
                                                                                 Jacob Beser/Eugene Grennan
1984    509th      9-12 August         Philadelphia, PA      Charles Levy/Stanley Steinke
1986    509th     16-19 October       St. Louis, MO          Stan Zahn/Richard Hesse
1988    509th      25-28 August       Boston, MA             Len Godfrey/William Knox
1990    509th      24-27 August        Wendover, UT         George Marquardt
1992    509th      13-16 August        Seattle, WA            Elbert Smith (with 20th Air Force)
1994    509th       1-4 August           Chicago, IL               Fred Olivi
1995    509th       5-11 August         Albuquerque, NM      Fred Bock/Dick Campbell
1997    509th       31 Jul-3 Aug         Dayton, OH              Fred Bock/Ralph Taylor III
1999    509th       14-17 September   Washington, DC       Sylvia Beser
2000    509th        21-24 September Kansas City, KS      Jerry Feldman
2001    509th        2-5 August           Wendover, UT         Robert & Amelia Krauss
2002    509th        3-5 October         Oak Ridge, TN         Robert & Amelia Krauss
2003    509th        9-12 October       New Orleans, LA      Robert & Amelia Krauss
2004    509th        7-10 October       Wichita, KS              Robert & Amelia Krauss
2005    509th        20-23 October     Washington, DC       Robert & Amelia Krauss
2006    509th       4-8 October       Colorado Springs, CO Robert & Amelia Krauss