In the text, the Enol Gay is linked to the 1945 explosion of an atomic bomb above Japan-Hiroshima. It was a massive four-engine superfortress. Following the mission’s disastrous failure, the superfortress with four engines was named for Colonel Paul Tibbets. Because a small group of brave Americans wasn’t properly shown to the public, the Enola Gay was miscast. It is still frustrating to a lot of veterans and others that the Air and Space Museum does not include some of the stories of people who were there during the war and their combined memories of how they contributed to our nation’s history. Linenthal and Engelhardt reported that in 1994, there was a dispute over an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. This display, which was the center of it, was intended to repair the Enola gay, an aircraft that is believed to be responsible for dropping an atomic bomb at Hiroshima. The display generated much controversy, especially among Congress members, veterans, as well as other parties, who felt that the exhibit mainly portrayed the Japanese and made them the main victims of World War II. It also called into question the morality and propriety of the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Following a heated debate and many rewrites, Congress and veteran groups reportedly scrapped the display. The original display was replaced mostly by a subdued, less visually striking presentation.
The debates over the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Wall are proving that it is impossible to save the Enola Gay display with just a compromise, in contrast to other examples of problems regarding historical remembrance. In other words, the memories of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the consequences of World War II as a whole continue to have a unique position in the cultural physics of American society (Linenthal & Engelhardt, 134). According to the article, American culture considered World War II a “Good War”.