Trump deletes enola gay

In March , following U.S. 's orders to remove all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from federal agencies, The Associated Press reported the Pentagon was. The military is set to remove thousands of photos and online posts in the DEI purge following an executive order issued by . Photos of the Enola Gay World War II bomber, Black military pilots and the country’s first female fighter pilot are among the tens of thousands of images flagged for removal by the Pentagon in.

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and women and minorities are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content. The granddaughter of Paul W. Tibbets Jr. — the pilot who flew the bomber Enola Gay that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II — called the administration flagging.

The database, which was confirmed by U. But the eventual total could be much higher. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as , images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military.

And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women. Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California were marked for deletion, apparently because a local engineer in the photo had the last name Gay. And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish — including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.

Many of the images listed in the database already have been removed. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.

In some cases, the removal was partial. But at least one of the photos in that collection about an all-female C crew could still be accessed. Air Force Col. Also still visible was an image of then-Pfc. Harold Gonsalves. The database of the 26, images was created to conform with federal archival laws, so if the services are queried in the future, they can show how they are complying with the law, the U.

But it may be difficult to ensure the content was archived because the responsibility to ensure each image was preserved was the responsibility of each individual unit. In many cases, workers are taking screenshots of the pages marked for removal, but it would be difficult to restore them if that decision was made, according to another official, who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details that were not public.

In the Marine Corps, just one defense civilian is available to do the work. The Marine Corps estimates that person has identified at least 10, images and stories for removal online, and after further review, 3, of those have been removed. The total does not count more than 1, social media sites that have not yet been addressed. Many of those social media sites were military base or unit support groups created years ago and left idle.

No one still has the administrative privileges to go in and change the content. The Marine official said the service is going through each site and getting new administrative privileges so it can make the changes. On Feb. IE 11 is not supported.

An anonymous source said

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