have never been thoroughly aired.” 1 And Air Force Magazine former editor-in-chief John Correll has observed that the “first atomic mission was executed perfectly. Almost forgotten, it seems to me, has been the mission to Nagasaki,” as “many of the events before, during and immediately after the flight. Olivi in his memoirs, “Certainly, the flight of the first atomic bomber caught the attention of the American public in 1945” and “continues to be the subject of a furious debate. As observed by USAF lieutenant colonel Fred J. This was in marked contrast to the Hiroshima mission, which delivered the less powerful “Little Boy” device to within 800 feet of its intended target, Hiroshima’s Aioi Bridge. It was detonated above the predominantly Christian Urakami valley, just up the river and across a range of mountains from the Nagasaki waterfront and well over two miles from the intended ground zero for the blast. Tibbets hand-selected the Enola GayĪnd the Bockscar, right off of the assembly line.This article tells the story of the lesser-known second of the two atomic missions in the final days of World War II, which delivered a uniquely powerful and complex explosive device known as “Fat Man”-the first plutonium-implosion device ever deployed in war.
#ENOLA GAY PILOT QUOTE BEFORE UPGRADE#
The pressurized cabin was an upgrade to the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The four-engine, propeller-driven plane was used throughout World War II and into the Korean War. The Enola Gay is a handsome plane: a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber. Happened - and the plane that did it was named after Paul Tibbets' mother, Enola Gay Tibbets. No matter what the verdict is, the fact remains that it The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. Eisenhower had said that it "wasn't necessary to hit them with thatĪwful thing." Admiral William Leahy, the top ranking military official in the United States from 1942 until 1949, said: Not all of the top military officials were in agreement with Tibbets on this. I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did . While some interviews with the man indicate some degree of remorse, it appears that Tibbets truly believed in the cause of what he was doing. Still, Tibbets went back and forth in regards to the subject for the remainder of his life (he died in 2007). Mine were, basically, 'this is a tremendous thing.
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Everybody was thinking, there's no question in my mind about that. When it struck, the bomb immediately took the lives of 80,000 Japanese citizens - when the radiation-related deaths were factored in, the number grew to an estimated 150,000 or more.Īfterwards, I guess you'd call it a quiet and melancholy group going back. Tibbets was the pilot in charge of dropping the first-ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. had seen combat he'd seen a war-devastated Germany and his brothers in arms die in front of him-but what he hadn't foreseen was the effect that an atomic bomb could have on an entire country of people.
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But when I looked at it-when I saw what had taken place, and I saw the city covered, and what appeared to be going on-I knew that I just hadn't even come close to imagining what the effect was.Ĭolonel Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr.