It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ) and caused widespread death and destruction throughout the city. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces and Captain Robert A.
Little Boy was 9,700 pounds, 10 feet long, and just over 2 feet in diameter. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay piloted by Colonel Paul W. Little Boy exploded less than one minute later, about 1,500 feet above Hiroshima. In the end, the bomb was released from the plane’s front bomb bay at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The Enola Gay dropped the 8,900-pound bomb, nicknamed 'Little Boy,' over Hiroshima at 8:15 A.M. released another atom bomb on Nagasaki, devastating the city and ushering in the nuclear age. The Enola Gay had to be specially modified to successfully carry and deploy it, Carr says. As the city disappeared under a mushroom cloud, Captain Robert Lewis – co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the bomber that dropped the weapon – wrote in his log “My God, what have we done?” Three days later the U.S. B-29 Superfortress nicknamed Enola Gay flew some 1,500 miles from the island of Tinian and dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima, Japan – the first time such a catastrophic weapon was ever used in conflict.