Image of ‘Enola Gay’ Hiroshima bomber amongst thousands deleted in ‘bonkers’ military DEI crackdown

Images of famed World War II aircraft Enola Gay are set to be deleted as the US defense department under Pete Hesgeth scrambles to scrub any reference to DEI content following orders by the Trump administration.

As per a database obtained by The Associated Press, at least 26,000 images have seemingly been flagged for removal as part of the purge, but the final total could be much higher.

The move follows an executive order signed by Republican president Donald Trump following his return to the White House to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives from the federal government and military.

The order claimed DEI is akin to sex and racial discrimination and inadvertently “undermines leadership, merit and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness”.

Trump wrote: “As chief executive and commander-in -chief, I am committed to meritocracy and to the elimination of race-based and sex-based discrimination within the armed forces of the United States. No individual or group within our armed forces should be preferred or disadvantaged on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, colour or creed.”

Defense secretary and anti-woke stalwart Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday (5 March) to “take all practicable steps” to “remove all DoD news and feature articles, photos, and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).”

He has previously said “DEI is dead” and the Trump administration is “returning the focus of the military to merit and mission readiness”. 

As per the AP’s reporting, some of the content selected for deletion seems to have been chosen solely because the word “gay” is included, such as a photograph of Army Corps of Engineers one of whom had the surname Gay and an  image of B-29 aircraft Enola Gay – which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima during the Second World War. 

Another photograph highlighted for purge is one of Army Corps biologists, that image in question possibly being chosen because the caption mentions they were recording data about fish including weight and gender. Gender, like gay, possibly being viewed as a DEI-aligned phrase.

Alongside the crackdown on DEI, the Trump administration has focused considerable effort on stripping rights from trans people in their effort to halt so-called ‘gender ideology’. 

Following Trump’s inauguration, he has signed a litany of anti-trans executive orders, including declaring the official policy of the United States is that there are “only two sexes”, banning trans people from serving in the military and restricting gender-affirming healthcare for trans people under the age 19.

In a statement, John Ullyot – a spokesperson for the Pentagon – said: “We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”

Unsurprisingly, news of the Enola Gay image being flagged for removal simply because the word ‘gay’ is in the name quickly drew ridicule from critics of the Trump administration, who called those behind the decision “idiots”, “total morons” and “truly mad”. 

Chris Meagher, former spokesman of the Pentagon, called the reporting “bonkers.”

“Don’t Say (Enola) Gay!,” one X/Twitter user wrote, referencing the US military policy preventing LGBTQ+ troops from openly serving. 

More widely beyond the military, DEI has been a hot button issue in the US thanks to the efforts of right-wing pundit Robby Starbuck whose campaign to “restore sanity to corporate America” has resulted in numerous big-name businesses reversing their equality policies.