[QCWA] Fw: Paul Tibbets died Today - Follow up

[Bob Roske]

It's been brought to my attention:
> According to a famous ham website,
> Paul Tibbets call sign was K4ZVZ.
> He let it go because of poor hearing.
According to vanityhq.com Paul held the call until 1998.
73,
Bob N0UF
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Roske" <broske at hutchtel.net>
To: "QCWA - Reflector" <qcwa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 5:21 PM
Subject: Paul Tibbets died Today


> This isn't about QCWA or about Radio but without the Atom Bomb some, maybe 
> many of you wouldn't be here.
>
> RIP Paul!
>
> 73,
> Bob Roske, N0UF
> Just a kid at 60!
>
>> Pilot of Plane That Dropped A-Bomb Dies
>> By JULIE CARR SMYTH (Associated Press Writer)
>> From Associated Press
>> November 01, 2007 4:16 PM EDT
>> COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that
>> dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and 
>> insisted
>> for six decades after the war that he had no regrets about the mission 
>> and
>> slept just fine at night.
>>
>> Tibbets died at his Columbus home. He suffered from a variety of health
>> problems and had been in decline for two months.
>>
>> Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would 
>> provide
>> his detractors with a place to protest, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime
>> friend.
>>
>> Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the
>> beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what
>> military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody 
>> invasion
>> of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.
>>
>> The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on 
>> the
>> morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and
>> injured countless others.
>>
>> Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on
>> Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly 
>> in
>> that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.
>>
>> "I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing,"
>> Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published on the 60th
>> anniversary of the bombing. "We had feelings, but we had to put them in 
>> the
>> background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my 
>> one
>> driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the
>> killing as quickly as possible."
>>
>> Morris Jeppson, the officer who armed the bomb during the Hiroshima 
>> flight,
>> said Tibbets was energetic, well-respected and "hard-nosed."
>>
>> "Ending the war saved a lot of U.S. armed forces and Japanese civilians 
>> and
>> military," Jeppson said. "History has shown there was no need to 
>> criticize
>> him."
>>
>> Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his 
>> role.
>> He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.
>>
>> "I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able 
>> to
>> start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did," he
>> said in a 1975 interview.
>>
>> "You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were 
>> at
>> war. ... You use anything at your disposal."
>>
>> He added: "I sleep clearly every night."
>>
>> Tibbets took quiet pride in the job he had done, said journalist Bob 
>> Greene,
>> who wrote the Tibbets biography, "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man 
>> Who
>> Won the War."
>>
>> "He said, 'What they needed was someone who could do this and not 
>> flinch -
>> and that was me,'" Greene said.
>>
>> Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and 
>> spent
>> most of his boyhood in Miami.
>>
>> He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he
>> decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.
>>
>> After the war, Tibbets said in 2005, he was dogged by rumors claiming he 
>> was
>> in prison or had committed suicide.
>>
>> "They said I was crazy, said I was a drunkard, in and out of 
>> institutions,"
>> he said. "At the time, I was running the National Crisis Center at the
>> Pentagon."
>>
>> Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He 
>> later
>> moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in
>> 1985.
>>
>> The National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton plans a photographic tribute 
>> to
>> Tibbets, who was inducted in 1996.
>>
>> "There are few in the history of mankind that have been called to
>> figuratively carry as much weight on their shoulders as Paul Tibbets,"
>> director Ron Kaplan said in a statement. "Even fewer were able to do so 
>> with
>> a sense of honor and duty to their countrymen as did Paul."
>>
>> Tibbets' role in the bombing brought him fame - and infamy - throughout 
>> his
>> life.
>>
>> In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an 
>> appearance
>> at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the
>> show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.
>>
>> He said the display "was not intended to insult anybody," but the 
>> Japanese
>> were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology.
>>
>> Tibbets again defended the bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a
>> planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian
>> Institution.
>>
>> The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have examined the
>> context of the bombing, including the discussion within the Truman
>> administration of whether to use the bomb, the rejection of a 
>> demonstration
>> bombing and the selection of the target.
>>
>> Veterans groups objected, saying the proposed display paid too much
>> attention to Japan's suffering and too little to Japan's brutality during
>> and before World War II, and that it underestimated the number of 
>> Americans
>> who would have perished in an invasion.
>>
>> They said the bombing of Japan was an unmitigated blessing for the United
>> States and the exhibit should say so.
>>
>> Tibbets denounced it as "a damn big insult."
>>
>> The museum changed its plan and agreed to display the fuselage of the 
>> Enola
>> Gay without commentary, context or analysis.
>>
>> He told the Dispatch in 2005 that he wanted his ashes scattered over the
>> English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war.
>>
>> Newhouse confirmed that Tibbets wanted to be cremated, but he said 
>> relatives
>> had not yet determined how he would be laid to rest.
>>
>> Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea, and three sons - Paul, Gene and
>> James - as well as a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A
>> grandson named after Tibbets followed his grandfather into the military 
>> as a
>> B-2 bomber pilot currently stationed in Belgium.
>