Tibbets guided the plane, named after his mother Enola Gay, from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean towards its intended target – the Japanese city of Hiroshima.Īt 33,000 feet, the bomb was released. In the early hours of 6 August 1945, Colonel Paul Tibbets climbed aboard a B-29 Superfortress bomber loaded with a 10,000-pound atomic bomb nicknamed 'Little Boy'.