[SOC] Fw: ARC5 Digest, Vol 46, Issue 1

[Bob Krueger]

submitted by bob, WB9UKQ

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.




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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 15:30:54 -0600 (GMT-06:00)
From: David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [ARC5] Re: [Milsurplus] Paul Tibbets Passes Away at 92
To: David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>, arc5 at mailman.qth.net,
milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Message-ID:
<31305397.1193952654795.JavaMail.root at elwamui-muscovy.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8



>Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone,
>fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest.....

That's a damn shame;
the man can't even have peace in death,
without people coming to display their ignorance.
Pity.


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End of ARC5 Digest, Vol 46, Issue 1
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