Movie about the enola gay

Lewis had flown the first six missions of the previously unnamed B-29, but only Tibbets, the two flight weaponeers, radar countermeasure expert Jacob Beser and perhaps bombardier Thomas Ferebee knew what the bomb the Enola Gay was carrying was capable of. This film gets the chronological timing wrong in several places and uses comic relief when none is required.

Bob Lewis is portrayed as an old buddy of Paul Tibbets, yet I do not recall ever reading or seeing any documentation that would support such a relationship.

I suspect the subtitle -- "The Men, The Mission, The Bomb" -- was added to alert younger viewers to the fact that the movie had something to do with a bomb being dropped somewhere. Is it a bird? The scene exactly resembled that in those many many comic movies set the armed forces - from Operation Petticoat to Sargeant Bilko.

Billy Crystal, playing the usual Jewish wise guy from Brooklyn, has been kept in total darkness about the mission, but enters a room in which a miniaturized and devitaminized Robert Oppenheimer played by Robert Walden, gives a thirty-second chalkboard explanation of a weapon only a graduate in physics could understand, and Crystal emerges from the room fully enlightened as to the nature of the bomb and his own inclusion in the mission to drop it.

Their unpracticed voices stand out like gastropods on their poduncles. Is it true that one of the crew spent years in an insane asylum after committing this unspeakable act? There is a striking scene in which Duffy, as Tibbets, is disgusted with the recklessness of an old friend, Gregory Harrison, and snaps out to his commanding officer, Macht, that he wishes somebody could just get rid of Harrison.

David Strathairn excellent as Oppenheimer. There is a good bit of humour injected into what is a serious and tragic story but it fits well. It was not simply incompetent but given the gravity of the subject matter, distasteful.

I contrasted it with the superb Emmy-awarded "Day One" with Brian Dennehy as General Groves, a military bulldozer whose responsibility it was to drive the immense project forward often in the face of the sophisticated scruples of the brilliant scientists he had no choice but to work with.

There is a good bit of humour injected into what is a serious and tragic story but it fits well. And I was under the impression that the bomb had to be armed in flight by a naval officer, the US Navy not wanting to have this epic event depicted as an all-Army show. Lewis knew that the plane was carrying a powerful bomb but had no idea of the actual power that "Little Boy" had.

In fact, Tibbets did indicate that he wanted to make personnel selections, but that was probably no more than thirty men he had commanded previously. A few of the men I remember he selected included his radio operator, bombardier, navigator, and two other enlisted men who actually flew with him on the mission.

The 509th Composite Group consisted of about two thousand men, so his personally choosing less than fifty of the two thousand was no big deal.

Even better was the 1980 mini series "Oppenheimer" with Sam Waterston in the title role.

Given these two superb renderings of the genuinely world shattering story I cannot imagine how "Enola Gay etc" came to be conceived let alone made. If our soldiers did anything like that, they'd have one foot in fairydom.

The continuity is flawed.

(A) Her husband's increasing distance and irritability due to his burdensome responsibilities; (b) Wendover AFB's plumbing is not up to snuff; (c) Paul Tibbet's plumbing is not up to snuff.

CORRECT! It seems a shame this film falls so short in these details.

Best wishes, Dave Wile