I know this is a stupid question but my great-grandfather allegedly escorted one of the Bomber to their location (maybe halfway to the location) and back. I’ve been trying to do some research about it but nothing comes up. FYI he flew a P-38L and I don’t know if he would have flown anything else.
There were no escorts. There were observation aircraft, all B-29s. But it was deliberately low-profile. Field Orders Number 13 (August 2, 1945) for the bombing run dictated that:
"No friendly aircraft, other than those listed herein, will be within a 50 mile area of any of the targets for this strike [Hiroshima, Kokura, or Nagasaki] during a period of four hours prior to and six hours subsequent to strike time."
The "friendly aircraft" referred to were the 3 aircraft sent to bomb (the Enola Gay and two observation B-29s), 1 B-29 sent to Iwo Jima with a full gas load but no bombs (if the Enola Gay had trouble it could have gone there and offloaded the bomb to another plane before the strike), and 3 aircraft for weather reconnaissance over the targets (all B-29s). Four hours after the strike, two F-13s would be used to try and take photographs of the damage.
Now, it is possible that he may have escorted B-29s, even the Enola Gay, on other reconnaissance and weather missions. But neither the Hiroshima or Nagasaki missions had fighter escorts.