 After the war , the Enola Gay returned to the United States , where it was operated from Roswell Army Air Field , New Mexico . It was flown to Kwajalein for the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in the Pacific , but was not chosen to make the test drop at Bikini Atoll . Later that year it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution , and spent many years parked at air bases exposed to the weather and souvenir hunters , before being disassembled and transported to the Smithsonian 's storage facility at Suitland , Maryland , in 1961 . 
