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

[Bob Roske]

I just heard this from a QCWA Member,

> 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, SOC #521
QCWA Webmaster

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Krueger" <wb9ukq at ticon.net>
To: "SOC post" <>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 5:06 PM
Subject: [SOC] Fw: ARC5 Digest, Vol 46, Issue 1


>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> 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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