The original plan was eliminated and a more straightforward historical exhibit of the Enola Gay was put in its place. are held as a result of the controversy over the Smithsonians Enola Gay exhibit originally scheduled to open this month. Bennett was a part of the community who helped change the NASM exhibit through letter writing campaigns and publishing articles on the subject in local papers and magazines.
Veterans groups and others became involved in campaigns to display the Enola Gay proudly and have the Smithsonian redesign their exhibit to respectfully display the airplane. The initial exhibit was controversial, with veterans groups claiming that the revisionist historical attitude was omitting the truth behind the reason to drop the atomic bomb and sympathizing too much with the Japanese. In 1995, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (NASM) created an exhibit to feature the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb in the history of warfare on Hiroshima, Japan. During this period, he was a leading member of the Committee for the Restoration and Proper Display of the Enola Gay (CRPDEG). After the war, Bennett had a long career in the concrete contractor business in the greater Chicago, Illinois area. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps before Pearl Harbor and was discharged in October, 1945.ĭuring his years of service, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. He was a member of the 40th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) of the XX Bomber Command in the China/Burma/India (CBI) Theater of Operations as well as Tinian in the Mariana Islands of the Central Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
He flew combat missions in B-29’s as a radar operator and combat aerial photographer. Burr Bennett had a life-long interest in the Enola Gay Controversy as a result of his military service.