Posted on 08/07/2022 6:13:37 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Early in the morning of August 6, 1945, a U.S. Air Force B29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off from the its base in Tinian, near Guam, and headed for the city of Hiroshima in southern Japan.
It was carrying a 9,700 top-secret bomb named Little Boy. Its pilot was Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., who led a crew of 12 men on a mission that would change the history of the world.......
Pilot Tibbetts Jr and other crew members believed to the end of their lives that the bomb was necessary — and they say that it ultimately saved lives.
In a 2002 interview, Tibbetts told writer Studs Terkel: "I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we'd be doing that I thought, yes, we're going to kill a lot of people, but by God we're going to save a lot of lives. We won't have to invade [Japan]."......
He said: "You're gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we've never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn't kill innocent people.
"If the newspapers would just cut out the s--t: 'You've killed so many civilians.' That's their tough luck for being there," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
That figure has been reduced dramatically; it's understood to be less than 35k.
On my bucket list is to ride my boat from Lake Huron (the Blue Water Bridge) to Lake Erie then return to my home on Lake St Clair (I think I can do it in a day). Trying to get my Army Buddies to have a last hurrah with me.
So after I made the post I looked at the post 1 pic and didn’t recognize the area, and I graduated from a Detroit City HS. I was thinking it’s Pittsburg, but not sure. I didn’t create the pic, I stole it from the internet.
Paul Tibbetts was a true American hero.
Similar story but not yet overseas. My father was just completing his last home visit before being shipped out from the west coast. He was hitch-hiking back to CA from the Midwest and was somewhere in Wyoming when he caught a ride in what he said was a very nice car (can’t remember the make) and they all heard about the atom bomb on the car radio.
He said he spent the next 8 months in California “doing nothing” (his words) before being released from Army. If there was no A-Bomb I’m guessing I would not exist.
A judge whom I once worked for was specially trained to be a leader in the first wave of the invasion of Japan. Like many others, he regarded the atom bombing of Japan as the only reason he was alive after the war.
Don’t wait. That needs to be written. Very few stories like that that deserve to be told!
Naval Office estimate was that an invasion of Japan would cost some 2,000,000+ lives.
Towards the end of his life, Col. Tibbets, though confined to a wheelchair, had the status of a rock star.
The “Sandia Atomic Museum” was originally sited in 1969 on the grounds of Kirtland Air Force Base and was staffed by United States Air Force (USAF) personnel with help from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). In 1973, the Museum name changed to “National Atomic Museum”, but it did not yet have a national charter.
Every now and then, Col. Tibbets would pay a visit, and soon crowds would flood in for a meet and greet. The crowds quickly exceeded the area of the facility, which was aircraft hangar sized.
Because of 9-11, they had to move the museum off base, due to of the limitations on public access.
Great story Luz - thanks for sharing.
My dad flew the Hump in the China-Burma-India Campaign, then came home to retire.
He had been notified that his services would be required again when the bomb dropped...
I used to live in Grosse Ile. Downriver.
I would take the boat up to Lake St Clair pretty often, as well as down to Sandusky, Put-In-Bay, etc to the South.
But never made it to Huron. That would be a fun weekend trip.
The only river merging into the Detroit River is River Rouge. And that River would probably eat a hole in the bottom of your boat!
There is no such thing as innocent civilians when you make your leader a false god, and then perpetuate it. The entire society did that.
Secondly, the Japanese strategy was to bleed the US and allies for better terms. They knew they had lost even before Okinawa or Iwo Jima fell. They refused.
Lastly, the US showed great restraint by not dropping one on Tokyo, which any other nation would have done.
I believe “Enola Gay” is the name of Paul Tibbett’s mother.
“My Dad was training in Hawaii for the invasion of Japan when the first bomb dropped. After Saipan and Iwo Jima, he thought atomic bombs were a really cool idea!”
my dad would have been sent too ... he was an 18 year old who joined the navy in early 1945 and had initially been stationed off the eastern seaboard ...
Date of first atomic fission bomb test - July 16, 1945.
Date of Germany surrender - May 8, 1945.
We didn’t drop the bomb on Germany because we didn’t have a time machine.
We also apparently have a whole lotta people with no clue what they’re talking about.
We never had an atomic bomb to use on Germany.
Good luck-hope you get to do what you want to do.
I had a good friend of mine just passed away at 94yo, who was in ww2 and was one of about 500,00 troops being readied to invade Japan, when we dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima.
Truman’s ultimate “exit strategy”; although in war, the only strategy must be to defeat — completely — the enemy.
Yes, even the infants.
And never fired a shot.
Tibbets had the right attitude, survival.
Us or them. We have lost that.
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