“I can’t show you the ordnance in action. “I don’t have any Alamogordo test footage,” Parsons said. Tibbets raised his hand and asked, “What is Little Boy, captain?” In the briefing where he informed the crew of the Enola Gay of this procedure, Col. Parsons had seen plenty of overloaded B-29 bombers crash on takeoff and opted to arm Little Boy after successfully reaching 5000 feet altitude. Parsons was on board as the head of the Los Alamos science team and an active participant in the bomb’s drop. He was vaguely aware of how strange it was for his mother’s namesake to be pregnant with death but more consciously proud that he flew her name for his country. Tibbets had named this last aircraft after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. The Enola Gay carried the bomb “Little Boy” to the primary target of Hiroshima. The Great Artiste was staffed by engineers and dropped instrumentation by parachute. #91, unnamed at the time, carried scientific observers. Although there were seven aircraft on the mission, only three were there to see Little Boy’s drop.
