The 'Enola Gay' gained additional national attention in 1995 when the cockpit and nose section of the aircraft was exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington, D.C. The B-29 was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Paul Tibbets.

Because of the bomber's role in the atomic bombings of Japan, its name has been synonymous with the controversy over the bombings themselves. The 'Enola Gay' is the name of the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb, code-named ' Little Boy', to be used in war, by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the attack on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945, just before the end of World War II. Primary user = United States Army Air Forces Caption =Colonel Paul Tibbets waving from 'Enola Gay''s cockpit before taking off for the bombing of Hiroshima.