Udvar-Hazy Center (the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)’s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport) – an excursion I had long wanted to take and anticipated very much. I had an extra day in Washington DC – so I headed over to the Steven F. “Forward This” appears Wednesdays and Sundays and highlights the people, places and organizations of the Mid-Willamette Valley.I had the privilege of seeing up close a number of amazing historical aircraft this week. Today, it is framed and displayed on the same wall of his Albany home as the photo of the Enola Gay taken by his friend. You can see where I had it folded up in my duffel bag for a long time.” “Several copies came off the machine, and this is one of the copies," Abel said.
![picture on enola gay plane picture on enola gay plane](https://f1.media.brightcove.com/8/77374810001/77374810001_2923979568001_video-still-for-video-2924059974001.jpg)
Douglas MacArthur’s surrender instructions to the Japanese emperor. Like Farrens with his roll of 127 film, Abel also came home from the war with contraband. “We were waiting for something to happen,” Abel said. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later, they sensed increased efforts to end the war. “If MacArthur had shown up, we would have had to say, ‘Sorry sir, you can’t come in,’ ” Abel said.Īlthough Abel and his fellow cryptographers weren’t specifically aware of the plan to bomb Hiroshima on Aug.
Picture on enola gay plane code#
He worked in the headquarters code room for the Army’s 20th Air Force, decoding and disseminating communication intelligence from inside a locked room with only a small window to deliver messages back and forth. In his role with the 8th Radio Squadron Mobile, everything was top secret. Personnel stationed around North Field on Tinian knew they were witnessing history, first watching the Enola Gay take off, then later land, but not really knowing what it was about to do or what it had just done.Ībel was stationed on Guam, the island just south of Tinian. He was 91.Ībel, 94, is grateful they had a chance to reminisce again about how Farrens had to sneak to take that photo. Farrens eventually did, too, after hanging up his clippers.Ī volunteer with Serenity Hospice in Salem helped facilitate the reunion, and the friendship that was forged over a photograph was rekindled, just in time, too. Abel, a retired civil structural engineer, moved away from Aurora. The two men recently reconnected after losing touch. “You’ve got to start at the bottom and work up,” Abel kidded him. I was supposed to be learning the equipment.”Ībel heard that story for the first time during a late-May visit with Farrens at Willson House Residential Care. “I wasn’t happy about it – it was horrible - and I went to complain. “I patched hemorrhoids for 41 days,” he said with a chuckle. “I was surprised to see it, and I was so glad to talk to somebody who was involved in the same stuff I was,” Abel said.įarrens also supervised nurses at the hospital, but not before putting in his time. “He said he had a picture of the Enola Gay, and I told him I was interested in that because I was kind of involved myself,” Abel said.įarrens went home and dug out the roll of 127 film that had been tucked away for decades. Abel was an Army Air Forces cryptographer who handled top-secret messages on the neighboring island of Guam. Their conversation turned to the war, how they had both served in the South Pacific, and the mission of the Enola Gay.įarrens was an Army medic at a hospital on Tinian, the launching point for the attacks that ended the war. Farrens was a barber, and Abel needed a trim. His friend Jim Farrens captured the image of the famous B-29 Superfortress shortly after it returned from dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.Ībel and Farrens met years ago in Aurora, where they were both living at the time. More valuable than the signature, at least to Abel, is the story behind the photo.
![picture on enola gay plane picture on enola gay plane](https://www.atomicarchive.com/media/photographs/tinian/media/enola-gay-color.jpg)
A photograph of the Enola Gay, signed by pilot Paul Tibbets, has a prominent place on the wall among Miles Abel’s World War II keepsakes.