The exhibition text summarized the history and development of the Boeing B-29 fleet used in bombing raids against Japan.Īnother portion of the exhibit detailed the painstaking efforts of Smithsonian aircraft restoration specialists who had spent more than a decade restoring parts of the Enola Gay for this exhibition. The components on display included two engines, the vertical stabilizer, an aileron, propellers, and the forward fuselage that contains the bomb bay.Ī video presentation about the Enola Gay's mission included interviews with the crew before and after the mission including mission pilot Col. It contained several major components of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber used in the atomic mission that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. Jeppson’s death leaves Theodore Van Kirk, 89, the Enola Gay’s navigator, as the plane’s last survivor.This past exhibition, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, told the story of the role of the Enola Gay in securing Japanese surrender. his stepsons, Mike Sullivan of Pahrump, Nev., and John Sullivan of Lakeport, Calif., and a stepdaughter, Jane Ross, of Midland, Ontario a brother, Lawrence, of Salt Lake City 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. two daughters from his first marriage, Nancy Hoskins of Colorado Springs and Carol English of Medford, Ore. Jeppson is survived by their daughter, Sally Jeppson, of Gackle, N.D. Jeppson’s first marriage ended in divorce. He sold the plugs for $167,500 to a retired physicist who collected military memorabilia. The Justice Department sought to block the auction on the grounds that the plugs were government property and perhaps contained secret data, but a federal judge in San Francisco ruled in favor of Mr. Jeppson sought to auction off Enola Gay souvenirs he had brought back with him: a green electronic plug designed to prevent an accidental detonation in flight, and a spare among the red plugs that armed the bomb and were destroyed when it exploded. He worked on nuclear projects at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and later founded a company that manufactured high-power microwave heating systems for industrial use and food processing. “The rest of us saw the billowing clouds and the mushroom cloud rising,” he told The Las Vegas Sun in 2000. When the bomb detonated above Hiroshima, the Enola Gay’s tailgunner was the only crewman who witnessed the explosion, Mr. He divided his time between Wendover and the New Mexico desert before departing for Tinian and the final preparations to drop the bomb. Lieutenant Jeppson was assigned to help the Manhattan Project scientists who were assembling the bomb at Los Alamos, N.M., to understand its electronic devices. The bomb was dropped at 8:15 in the morning and exploded 43 seconds later, creating an inferno that left tens of thousands dead or dying. Tibbets Jr., brought the four-engine B-29 Superfortress over Hiroshima. Parsons of the Navy, the officer in overall control of the uranium bomb known as Little Boy, Lieutenant Jeppson checked its circuits, timing devices and radar components.Īfter a flawless six-and-a-half-hour flight, the bomb systems working perfectly, the Enola Gay’s pilot, Col. 6, 1945, Lieutenant Jeppson was making his first and only combat flight.Īs the assistant to Capt.
When the Enola Gay lifted off from the island of Tinian in the South Pacific in the early hours of Aug. His death was announced by his wife, Molly. Academy have done a great job in presenting a model kit of one of the great aircraft of WW2 the Boeing B29 Superfortress while there are a couple of other kits of the aircraft on the market, this particular kit focuses on the two aircraft responsible for bringing the Second World War to a close, the Enola Gay the aircraft that dropped the very first Atomic Bomb on the city of Hiroshima and. Jeppson, who was 87 and lived in Las Vegas, was the next-to-last survivor of the 12 men who carried out history’s first atomic strike. Jeppson, an Army Air Forces electronics specialist who helped arm the atomic bomb aboard the Enola Gay as it flew to Hiroshima, died March 30 at a hospital in Las Vegas.