Enola gay the men the mission the atomic bomb

Lewis knew that the plane was carrying a powerful bomb but had no idea of the actual power that "Little Boy" had. In the UK, too many students think the Holocaust is an amusement park ride and Hitler was a football coach. Tibbets was portrayed as saying he wanted to pick his own men rather than the ones selected by his superiors. Is it a bird?

Recent polls suggest that students are no long familiar with even the general outlines of the period. Was the action justified? I wonder how many have been inside a B-29. I don't know, for instance, that Crystal and his new friend and former MP shadow have a shoot out in a Tinian cave and the MP is killed, prompting Crystal to brood, however briefly, over the meaning of life.

Lewis knew that the plane was carrying a powerful bomb but had no idea of the actual power that "Little Boy" had. The integration of newsreel footage and the dissolves from black and white to colour are particularly effective.

A extraordinary miscasting was Patrick Duffy, Dallas's Bobby Ewing, as the Enola Gay's pilot - bland and soft showing no evidence of stress or emotion that even the grittiest (and gritty the pilot must have been) would have shown. In real life the recording of the plane intercom picked up the reaction of one of the crew: "My God, what have we done?"

I assumed that I'd seen an unrepresentative section so watched a repeat.

"Really? Surprisingly there is no mention of the subsequent Nagasaki bombing or the tragedy of the USS Indianapolis which played a vital role in transporting the bomb to Tinian and was torpedoed on her return journey. Check back soon for updates on where you can watch it online.