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Museum Audio Tour 12: Air Power Gallery: Taking the Offensive - Pacific

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

Dec. 31, 1969 | 1:49

Although Hitler and Nazi Germany were defeated in May of 1945, the war in the Pacific would continue for another three months. It was clear that Japan was losing, but they would fight to the death to protect their homeland. In this gallery, you’ll notice some planes that were used in the Pacific Theater, including the P-47D -- one of the most famous planes in World War Two, and the A-20G Havoc — a plane that lived up to its name by creating havoc and destruction on low-level strafing attacks, especially against Japanese shipping and airfields across the Southwest Pacific. But probably one of the most notable aircraft of the war was a B-29 Superfortress called Bockscar. While the Army, Navy and Marines were planning an invasion of the Japanese homeland – a task that would likely cost hundreds of thousands American lives – the Army Air Forces were planning to deliver a new secret weapon. On August 9, 1945 the Bockscar dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki, three days after the first atomic attack on Hiroshima. Soon thereafter, on September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur received the surrender document aboard the battleship USS Missouri. World War Two was officially over, … however, the “Atomic Age” had just begun. If you’re interested in hearing first-hand what it was like to be involved with flying a plane that carried an atomic bomb, visit the Carney Auditorium portion of the pod map and listen to Brigadier General Paul Tibbets Jr., the pilot of the Enola Gay, as he presents “Air Power in World War Two.”