The aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima before Japan’s 1945 surrender was Enola Gay.
Enola Gay was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress of the United States Army Air Forces. Colonel Paul Tibbets piloted it during the August 6, 1945, mission from the U.S. base on Tinian in the Mariana Islands. Tibbets had named the aircraft after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.
The bomber released Little Boy over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time. The weapon exploded at an altitude of roughly 1,900 feet above the city, producing enormous blast, heat, and radiation effects.
Enola Gay is sometimes confused with Bockscar, the B-29 that carried Fat Man during the Nagasaki mission. The Great Artiste also flew near both missions as an observation and measurement aircraft, but it did not drop either atomic bomb.