The Enola Gay, a Boeing B Superfortress bomber, played a pivotal role in World War II, becoming the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare. Named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the bomber was instrumental in the mission that devastated Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, Built by the Glenn L. Martin Company at its Bellevue, Nebraska.