Enola Gay log books at auction

[4RG.I.'S]

There is a large auction tomorrow (Wednesday) of WWII material from all theaters including the log books from Enola Gay co pilot Capt. Robert Lewis. Noticed it on the news this morning. Very interesting collection! I have nothing to do with the auction, just passing it along. Here is a link to the list:

http://images2.bonhams.com/original?src ... 56-0-1.pdf

[tom d. friedman]

money talks, Enola gay's logs should be at the usaf museum / or Smithsonian museum. what a crime. the least that could be done is to log the entries done & archive them for all to see.

[jtramo]

Isn't it the pilots logs and not the aircraft logs? Either way it looks like most of that stuff should be in a museum but people like collecting. It's why the stuff survived in the first place

[CoastieJohn]

Wow! I didn't know this about Paul Tibbets.....at least from Lewis's point of view. That may rewrite some of the history. I wonder if this will be further explained in the forthcoming book? The below text is located on page 162 of the auction booklet.

An extraordinary series of log books carefully filled for every day that
Lewis flew, the pages of proforma logging his flight plan, duration, type
of plane, engines, and horsepower with a column for remarks. On
combat missions from Tinian he adds in details of targets, bomb altitude
and poundage dropped. His remarks are illuminating: at the end after
the 9 Jan 1946 he adds “36 flights in Enola Gay #(6292). Tibbets was
on 2 Flights.” Although an official manuscript log for a pilot (something
every pilot was supposed to do) this log is revealing in its suggestion
that Tibbets was completely inexperienced at flying a B-29.
Against August 6, 1945 Lewis writes: “No#1 Atomic bomb a huge
success 8900 lbs hit center of city.” On December 13, 1944 his
remarks against a 20 minute local flight “Paul checked me out.” Later
as an older man he goes over each page of entries in the months
running up to the mission and adds near the bottom of each page the
total of B-29 flights that page records, the addition of these flights on
B-29s being 61 hours. The hand is shaky, as of an older man, looking
back at the past at the injustice he had felt had been served out to
some the crew that were forced out after training so hard with him.
That injustice, the moment when Paul Tibbets joined the flight crew as
“Commander”(with insufficient flying training on B-29s) and brought
two of his friends with him to join the crew, seemed to Lewis to have
been a flippant and dangerous move for the mission.
Of course he never spoke out. He wanted to object to Tibbets renaming
the aircraft after his mother the night before the flight, and was appalled
that Tibbets and Van Kirk joined the movie about the flight filmed in 1952
as advisors and then never shared any money they received amongst any
of the crew. The way that Tibbets received his DFC, in front of cameras
and invited media, then flew secretly to Guam to conduct a press
conference on the Hiroshima Bombing on August 7th, while at the same
time the rest of the crew flew a conventional bomb mission to Japan
before they supported Sweeney on the Nagasaki mission that took place
on the 8th August. Lewis was an honorable, quiet man, who remained
aggrieved at the behavior of Tibbets that August in 1945 and following. (2)
$150,000 - 200,000

[wendovertom]

I think that it is well documented that Tibbets had plenty of B-29 experience and that the comments are a little more of a personal issue than one of serious concern. IMHO these comments relate more to Sweeny who had FAR less actual combat experience than did Lt.Col Classen (Group XO) - Classen was sent back to the states rather than being given the Nagasaki mission.

Anyway - I agree - these should be in a museum.

Tom P.

[tinbender2]

Buyer beware.

Do your own research. Just a brief glance at a few of the offerings, shows item #55, a collection of 1943 Ploesti raid photos, with aircraft described as B-17s, when they are clearly B-24s, a rather significant error for a professional militaria auction house.

[rcaf_100]

Buyer beware.

Do your own research. Just a brief glance at a few of the offerings, shows item #55, a collection of 1943 Ploesti raid photos, with aircraft described as B-17s, when they are clearly B-24s, a rather significant error for a professional militaria auction house.

Same with item #6...a Mosquito labelled as a Blenheim, and #124...two B-26's labelled as B-25's.

[Taylor Stevenson]

Pump the brakes, guys. They corrected the errors live at the auction.

[Taylor Stevenson]

The reserve for the pilot's log (Lot 295) wasn't met at $110,000 and the reserve for the Lewis flight log (Lot 296) and file wasn't met at $50,000, but the handwritten copy of the log (Lot 294) sold for $40,000 and the bombing manuscript (Lot 289) went for $30,000.

If anyone's interested (and I might be slightly off), but here were the results of the Enola Gay auction items (parenthesis means the reserve wasn't met):

Lot 287 $2800
Lot 288 $1000
Lot 289 $30,000
Lot 290 $5000
Lot 291 $1800
Lot 292 $4500
Lot 293 $5000
Lot 294 $40,000
Lot 295 ($110,000)
Lot 296 ($50,000)
Lot 297 $2500
Lot 298 ($1300)
Lot 299 ($550)
Lot 300 $3000
Lot 301 ($550)
Lot 302 ($7500)
Lot 303 ($650)

It was fun watching the whole auction live on their website... Even picked up a couple things

[JOMiller]

I'm new to Bonham's Auctions and would like to know what happens to the unsold lots?

Curious,
Owen

[tom d. friedman]

items go back to the owner, or they list them again. surprising results as that auction house is strictly high dollar customer oriented. 1 of the top auction houses in the country.

[Chris Brame]

It was fun watching the whole auction live on their website... Even picked up a couple things

Taylor, do you recall what the high bid was on the very last item (Japanese flag, lot #332, est. $1500-$2000, did not sell)? My father has one like that he picked up during the occupation (larger but not marked up).

[Silverplate]

Very wishfully expensive stuff. I represented Gen. Tibbets during Florida tours and visits. I gave numerious autographed new copies of his book and photos at reasonable prices...Mike

[Taylor Stevenson]

Sorry, Chris. I didn't write that down.

Mike, I don't think the items were wishfully expensive at all. There is a BIG difference between autographed books by Gen. Tibbets and THE logs of the Co-Pilot and hand-drawn diagrams of the most pivotal point in ending the war in the Pacific... There are thousands of the former... There is only ONE of the latter.