509th Composite Group Aircraft Photography

The collection includes four photographs of Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber aircraft assigned to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 509th Composite Group: "Enola Gay" (which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan), "Bockscar" (which dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan), and "The Great Artiste" (which flew as on observation aircraft on both atomic missions). Also included are photographs showing the aircraft nose art on two US Navy Consolidated PB4Y Liberators ("Lady Luck" and "Impatient Virgin") and views of two USAAF fighters (North American P-51 "Snortin Phyllie" and the burnt-out remains of a crashed Republic P-47 Thunderbolt). All photographs are believed to have been taken on Tinian in the Mariana Islands sometime during 1945, most likely at North Field.

The original photographs were copied in 1988 and assigned Smithsonian Institution negative numbers 88-547 through 88-554; images are presented online in negative number order. Original prints are stored by subject in the National Air and Space Museum Technical Reference Files, NASM.XXXX.1183.