Ohio air show drops bomb re-enactment

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

A popular southwest Ohio air show has canceled plans to stage a re-enactment of the devastating World War II atomic bomb attack on Japan after protests, officials said Thursday.

Dayton Air Show spokeswoman Brenda Kerfoot said the June 22-23 event at Dayton International Airport will keep a planned “Great Wall of Fire” pyrotechnic show but not as an event meant to re-enact the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima. The B-29 plane “Fifi,” similar to the Enola Gay B-29 bomber used to attack Japan, will remain in the show but in a separate role.

Air-show officials said the re-enactment was meant to highlight a historic event that helped end the war and save lives that would have been lost if the war had been prolonged.

“We’ve taken it as more of an educational show,” Kerfoot said. “The wording that we used probably wasn’t the best.”

She said once critics this week began calling it inappropriate for a family event, the air show decided to separate the B-29 from the pyrotechnic show.