Enola Gay, the mother of Paul Tibbits Jr., the pilot who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending WWII, and the namesake of his plan, lived in Miami. In fact, Paul grew up in Miami, and—according to his memoir—the day he decided to become a pilot was the day he helped bomb Hialeah Park Race Track and Miami Beach with Babe Ruth candy bars in a publicity stunt.

In patriotic fervor, the entire village of Bal Harbour, then still in development, was leased to the United States Air Corps by the villages's founder Robert C. Graham for $1 a year. Bal Harbour became a tent city for soldiers, with a rifle range where the St. Regis is now. The site of Bal Harbour Shops was a German prisoner of war camp.