The bomb was uranium-based and was untested during the Manhattan Project, unlike the second bomb (‘ Fat Man‘) that was plutonium-based, and was dropped on Nagasaki three days after the Hiroshima bombing. ‘Enola Gay’ is the name of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress plane carrying the atomic bomb ‘ Little Boy‘, and was named by pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets after his mother. The poem is written from a retrospective point of view, yet begins moments before the bomb is dropped, when the world was still oblivious to the idea of atomic warfare. This unprecedented move by America is said by some to have ended WW2, however the poem itself explores the guilty conscience of those involved in the bombings and refers throughout to time passing, as each stanza begins with the word ‘later’. ‘What have we done?’ – written by the co-pilot of the Enola Gay in his diary, as he witnessed the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb spreading over Hiroshima.ĬONTEXT: The title of the poem indicates the date America dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
