A 9 pp mimeographed (or possibly telexed) copy of Lewis's original handwritten log made on Tinian Island, and mostly over-inked and penciled (by Lewis?), upper right corner lettered in pencil 2-10, old lettering at lower right, the first page blank, then numbered 1-8, several sets of old pin holes to upper left and right; together with a mimeographed (or possibly telexed) copy of an "officially typed" version of the log, 7 pp, two sets of pin holes at upper left. Period paper, the log copy with page 3 slightly larger and uncut, and pp 2,4-10 trimmed at the top attempting to cut out the "line of position" lettering on the original log; the paper of the typed copy slightly larger still and uniform; together with a card signed Paul W. Tibbetts "with best wishes to Bruce David Weiss."
Provenance: William "Deak" Parsons (Sold 16 November 1991, Frank Cea Barnstormer Auction, Roosevelt Airfield, Long Island, New York, lot 243, partial); The War Museum; sold Bonhams New York, February 23, 2013, to the Zaricor Flag Collection.

AN EXTRAORDINARY SURVIVAL of a period mimeographed copy of Lewis's log, over-inked and over-penciled probably by Lewis himself and given to Parsons, identical to the Enola Gay Log sold from the Forbes Collection by Christies in 2002. Tinian had several machines capable of doing such a copy and in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb, it seems likely that Lewis or perhaps Parsons had both the mimeographed manuscript and the typed version made up and given to a few favored friends on the mission.

Lewis disguised the original log as a letter to his Mom and Dad, thinking that this report, for the absent New York Times Science editor, William Laurence (who had missed the flight because he arrived too late), would be confiscated by the authorities. Lewis worked on the log again on the 10th August adding a "History of the 509th Bomb Group," and soon after lent the log to William Laurence for a month or so before the original was returned to him. The interesting part of this log is the over-inking and over-penciling, done on the mimeographed copy to mimic the original. On the original document, Lewis changed to pencil halfway through the flight as his pen ran out of ink: this copy mimics that change.

The existence of any typed version of Lewis's in-flight log is unusual, the typed copy identical to the mimeographed version excepting the addition of the front page and the back page and with about 19 mis-typings and misplaced full stops etc.

The Enola Gay was constructed by the Glenn L. Martin Company (later Lockheed Martin) in Bellevue, Nebraska and personally selected while in the assembly line on May 9th 1945, by Colonel Paul Tibbetts. The plane was accepted by the USAAF on May 18th, assigned to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group. Captain Robert A. Lewis took the delivery and flew the plane to the main base at Wendover Field, Utah on June 14th. Thirteen days later the plane went to Guam for adaptations to the bomb bay and then on to North Field, Tinian. On August 5, the new Commander of the mission Colonel Tibbetts renamed the plane "Enola Gay" after his mother, and by the morning of the 6th the plane had been already repainted--much to the anger of Captain Robert Lewis, who was already upset at being replaced as the commander of the mission. The team of 12 men were assembled at Tinian, kept apart from the rest of the pilots for the weeks leading up to the mission. It has been said that only 3 people knew the purpose of the mission--Ferebree, Parsons and Tibbetts--although this log implies that most of the crew appeared to be aware of their purpose. Nonetheless, they were astonished by the impact of the bomb. As Lewis famously says on p 9: "My God what have we done."

Lewis sold his original hand-written copy in 1971; later it entered the collection of Malcom Forbes, and was later sold as part of the Forbes collection in 2002 (and has sold twice since then). Before selling the original in 1971, Lewis created manuscript fair copies of his narrative for each of his 5 children and his wife, many of which have made their way onto the market. This copy is not one of the later fair copies, but is instead something created for William Sterling "Deak" Parsons (1901-1953), the weaponeer aboard the Enola Gay, apparently while the crew was on Tinian in the days after the mission. It may have been reproduced with a standard mimeo machine, or perhaps with AT&T's TWX (telex) technology used for sensitive instantaneous communications during WWII. The present copy was sold along with other items from Parson's estate in 1991, where it was purchased by The War Museum, and later deaccessioned and sold in these rooms in 2013.