Today in U.S. military history: Enola Gay and Extortion 17

1763: With Ottawa chief Pontiac laying siege to Fort Pitt (modern-day Pittsburgh), a force marches to the frontier fort to break the siege, consisting of Pennsylvania rangers and Scottish soldiers of the 42d Royal Highlanders – the famed “Black Watch.” Allied natives ambush the relief force at a creek known as Bushy Run and a bloody two-day battle kicks off. Col. Henry Bouquet’s men emerge victorious, routing the Indians – although at high cost to the Scottish/American troops – and lifting the siege at Fort Pitt.

Today’s 111th Infantry Regiment traces its lineage to the Philadelphia “Associators” militia regiment (formed by Benjamin Franklin) that manned Fort Pitt. Each year at their “dining-in” banquet, an empty table setting is left in honor of the commander of the Black Watch. At least twice in the last 200-plus year tradition, the officer has been on hand to accept the honor.

1945: A lone B-29 bomber takes off from Tinian Island’s North Field and heads out for a six-hour flight to Japan. Once the Enola Gay is over its target of Hiroshima, Col. Paul Tibbetts releases the bomb and dives to speed away from the device’s powerful shock wave. 43 seconds later, the world’s first atomic bomb detonates, killing between 80,000 and 140,000 Japanese instantly, and severely wounding another 100,000.

Although the United States demonstrated they now possess the ability to utterly annihilate entire cities, the Japanese government vows to fight on. Another atomic bomb will have to fall before Japan is brought to its knees.

2011: An enemy rocket-propelled grenade hits a CH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying a quick-reaction force of Navy SEALs flown in to augment a team of Rangers trying to kill or capture a senior Taliban leader. The helicopter crashes and all aboard are killed (33 passengers, five crew, and a

“1945: A lone B-29 bomber takes off...Once the Enola Gay is over its target of Hiroshima, Col. Paul Tibbetts releases the bomb and dives to speed away...” [from the original article]

victoryinstitute.net needs to find some more-attentive, better-informed editors and fact-checkers.

Paul W Tibbets Jr did not release the weapon himself. He was merely the pilot; didn’t even do the steering on the bomb run. 11 other men crewed Enola Gay on that sortie.

To name a few:

The bombardier, Thomas W Ferebee used the sighting system to aim the aircraft, transmitting course-change commands directly to the autopilot, and hit the release button himself. Navigator Theodore Van Kirk guided the pilots as they flew the machine across some 1500 miles of open ocean, fixing their location and ordering changes in airspeed to place the aircraft over Hiroshima within a few seconds of planned time over target. Tibbets, Van Kirk, and Ferebee were acclaimed by many in 8AF as the most accomplished B-17 primary crewmembers in 8AF a couple years earlier; Tibbets personally requested the assignment of the other two to the 509th CG specifically for this mission.

Capt William S Parsons, a US Navy weapons officer, was the most knowledgeable individual on board when it came to operation of the weapon itself. He was given the responsibility for all decisions concerning the device and for overall mission success.

Jacob Beser was the radar countermeasures officer; he was the only other man in the 509th besides Paul Tibbets who was granted clearance into every aspect of the program and the mission. He was given the critical task of monitoring Japanese radio and radar activity, to determine if they were transmitting on the frequency of the weapon’s proximity fuze. If the Japanese decided to jam the fuze receiver, it would have gone off just as it dropped away from the aircraft. Beser was the only individual to fly on both atomic strike sorties: no one else knew enough about the weapons, the radio and radar systems, and the extremely sensitive intelligence information on Japanese radio and radar employment practices.

And Tibbets did not dive the aircraft away; he performed a max performance right turn through 155 degrees of azimuth. Given the airspeed and turn radius of the B-29, this was calculated to provide the greatest separation from ground zero that could be achieved, in the time it took the weapon to fall from its release altitude to its detonation altitude of about 1800 ft above ground.

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