WI: Hiroshima had become a suicide mission?

An idea that has been rolling about in my head for a while...

So for whatever reason, the Enola Gay has some kind of engine trouble and is going to crash. The crew heroically dive the bomber into the target zone of "Little Boy" and perish (of course). Due to the design of the bomb, it's still going to detonate.

Surely to hell there are some sort of butterflies to using the kamakaze tactic against the Japanese (even if by accidental necessity), but I figured you folks would have more to say about this than I.

So, what if Hiroshima had been a suicide mission? Cultural butterflies at least?
 
Other than no photos of the bombing, nothing much. Enola Gay would be presumed to be a unwitting casualty of the bombing. We may a couple of more planes escorting Fat Man to Kokura/Nagasaki just to document the whole thing.
 
An idea that has been rolling about in my head for a while...

So for whatever reason, the Enola Gay has some kind of engine trouble and is going to crash. The crew heroically dive the bomber into the target zone of "Little Boy" and perish (of course). Due to the design of the bomb, it's still going to detonate.

Surely to hell there are some sort of butterflies to using the kamakaze tactic against the Japanese (even if by accidental necessity), but I figured you folks would have more to say about this than I.

So, what if Hiroshima had been a suicide mission? Cultural butterflies at least?

I would hardly call it a suicide mission, since Enola crashes due to engine problems....and therefor not a straight forward suicide mission.

In military history there are other examples of pilots (not japanese) who crashes their damaged plane into the enemy.

I doubt that there will be any significant, if any at all, butterflies because of this.
 
Other than no photos of the bombing, nothing much. Enola Gay would be presumed to be a unwitting casualty of the bombing. We may a couple of more planes escorting Fat Man to Kokura/Nagasaki just to document the whole thing.

The photos of the bombing were taken by another aircraft, iirc.

I guess I was just thinking that the bombing would have less of a negative reaction (increasingly over the years) by the United States if the crew were considered to be the ultimate American heroes of the time.
 
The Bomb needed to be dropped from a certain elevation to have maximum effect. Tibbets would have ordered it dropped even if he knew he had to crash the plane later.
 
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