On August 6, 1945, the day that was to prove the blindingly bright dawn of the atomic age, Little Boy, a 9,700 pound baby with the look of “an elongated trash can with fins,” had already been loaded into the specially prepared bomb bay of a B-29. The night before, in large letters, mission commander Col. Paul W. Tibbets, jr., had had painted under the pilot's window, “Enola Gay,” the name of his beloved mother, who had supported him against his father in his desire to enter the U.S. Air Force. The mission was blessed on the spot by a Protestant chaplain, who delivered an impromptu prayer he had scrawled on the back of an envelop, asking the Almighty Father “to be with those who brave the heights of Thy heaven and who carry the battle to our enemies.”