Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. The Enola Gay ( / ə ˈ n oʊ l ə/) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Paul Tibbets waving from the Enola Gay 's cockpit before taking off for the bombing of Hiroshima US Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb