23, the Senate unanimously passed a non-binding resolution calling the exhibit ″revisionist and offensive to many World War II veterans.″Īs the uproar continued, the Smithsonian last month announced that it would broaden the scope of the exhibit with a display on how Americans experienced World War II. Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay during the bombing, denounced it as ″a damn big insult,″ and on Feb. The display will mark the 50th anniversary of the bombing, which destroyed more than half of Hiroshima and killed up to 100,000 Japanese in August 1945.Īfter seeing an early draft of the exhibit’s script last year, veterans groups complained that it was too sympathetic to the Japanese and portrayed them as victims of American aggression.īrig. The front 56 feet of the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb used in wartime, is scheduled to go on display in May 1995 at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.