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| The Enola Gay story is interesting. Here is the name source:
On August 5, 1945, Tibbets formally named B-29 serial number 44-86292 Enola Gay after his mother.
Tibbets was born in Quincy, Illinois, the son of Paul Tibbets, Sr., and the former Enola Gay Haggard.
He was raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his father was a confections wholesaler.
On February 25, 1937, Tibbets enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. He was commissioned a second lieutenant during 1938 and received his flight commission at Kelly Field, Texas (later Kelly AFB and now the Kelly Field Annex of Lackland AFB).[2] Tibbets was named commanding officer of the 340th Squadron, 97th Heavy Bomb Group flying B-17 Flying Fortresses during March 1942. Based at RAF Polebrook, he piloted the lead bomber for the first Eighth Air Force bombing mission in Europe on August 17, 1942, and later flew combat missions in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations until returning to the U.S. to test fly B-29 Superfortresses. "By reputation", Tibbets was "the best flier in the Army Air Force".[3] One of those who confirmed this reputation was Dwight D. Eisenhower, for whom Tibbets served as a personal pilot at times during the war.
His grandson Colonel Paul W. Tibbets IV, USAF, (a 1989 graduate of the US Air Force Academy) was also commander of the 393rd Bomb Squadron at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, from 2005–2007 and flew the B-2 Spirit. The 393rd is one of two operational squadrons under the same unit his grandfather commanded, the 509th Bomb Wing.
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Do you like airplanes? Here's the cockpit of the B-29, Enola Gay
