August 6 1945 ~ 71st Anniversary of Hiroshima Mission

Self | Aug 6, 2016 | MkJessup

[mkjessup]

Enola Gay was completly restored and is on display at the Smithsonian. She looks ready to go.

Where did they say Obama intends to make his retirement home?

[mkjessup]

It was clearly the right thing to do, but our xxxxxx P resident has apologized for it. If he had been stinking up the White House in 1944, he would have ordered all of our Manhattan Project data to be shared with the Japs.

[PeterPrinciple]

This will explode a liberals head:

http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/atomictoys/GilbertU238Lab.htm

[freefdny]

Now I am become Death the destroyer of worlds.

[Delta 21]

Stationed on Guam around the turn of the century, I visited Tinian a few times. The beach where they unloaded the devices from the USS Indianapolis onto the island. The bomb pits they used to lower the A-bombs so they could drive the B-29s over them to load them are filled in but still there. The 4 runways on the island are still there as are relics of the war that havent been reclaimed by the jungle. It would have been a sight for sure to see and hear B-29s roaring around!

[RayChuang88]

A little tidbit on Koromo: because of the importance of the Toyota Motor Company in that city (Koromo was home to the Toyota Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. and the Toyota Motor Company grew out of that loom manufacturing company from 1938 on), in 1959 Koromo was renamed Toyota City, a name still used to this day.

[mkjessup]

And Germany tried to ship a submarine load of uranium or yellowcake to Japan at one point. Japan and Germany were both actively working on The Bomb.

They were indeed. To get a theatrical representation of what life would have been like had the Germans acquired the bomb first, search out the sequel to the sci-fi movie 'The Philadelphia Experiment' (Phil Exp II), while the plot is absurd (a nuclear armed stealth fighter is sent back in time to 1944/45 where the Germans make use of it against us), the resulting depiction of the German occupation of America is quite well done, bone chilling in fact.

Thank God we succeeded first.

[PeterPrinciple]

Captain William Parsons aboard as weaponeer

---

http://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/william-deak-parsons

[mkjessup]

He wasn’t a General at the time of the mission, was he? What WAS his rank? Captain, maybe?

That was a bit of data I was unable to find early EARLY this morning, however thanks to the obituary link for Paul Tibbets graciously provided by FReeper Wita, I learned that it was Colonel Tibbets who flew that mission, being promoted to Brigadier General later on.

Thank you Wita!

[daler]

Shouldn’t Hillary be joining Barack for a candlelight vigil somewhere today?

[mkjessup]

It was either drop the Bomb or prepare for an actual invasion of Japan that could have cost over one million American lives and at least ten times that among the Japanese. And that invasion would have resulted in the Japanese forever resenting us.

Absolutely correct. The militarist mindset which had taken over Japanese society had to be broken, and the atomic bombs were the only way that could be accomplished.

A long protracted invasion, occupation and pacification of the local population might have seen guerrilla hostilities continuing into the 1950's, perhaps even past 1960, considering their ingrained 'conquer or die' philosophy.

[New Perspective]

Thank you for a great post. :)

[onedoug]

“Dead horse”.

Let’s light-up parts of the mid-east, and do ‘er again!

[mkjessup]

I’m thinking a collection of stories like the two of you have would make an interesting documentary on the History channel.

Well thanks for that FRiend, beyond the story of my Uncle Tommy the welder, I don't have too much to offer, but I freely share the following additional 'stuff':

My GrandDad (who served in World War I with his brother, my Uncle Lee), wanted to enlist again after Pearl Harbor but my Grandmother pleaded with him not to go, as she had a new son (my Uncle Bob, now 75 yrs old), and my Dad had already graduated high school and had left for basic training, Pacific bound. So in order to 'do his part', my GrandDad went to work at the Anacostia Navy Yard, helping build torpedoes after finishing his full time day job as a government electrician.

Prior to going into the Army, my Dad had an after school job as an elevator boy at the U.S. Capitol and actually met then Senator Truman on a daily basis, taking him up to his office. My Dad was shot in the arm by a Jap sniper in late 1944, which ended his time in the Pacific, and after the atomic bombs were dropped, he wrote to President Truman just to say "you probably don't remember me, but I wanted to thank you and commend you for dropping the bombs on Japan and winning the War". Amazingly enough, Truman remembered my Dad, wrote him back, wished him the best in recovery from his wound, and I have the letter to this day, safely locked away. I will never part with it.

Dad went into electronics engineering, and continued to work for the Department of the Army as a civilian, and while he never spoke of his work, I am convinced that he witnessed more than a few nuclear tests out west (not sure about the Pacific testing), he developed thyroid problems later in life for which he was on medication, he did have a fierce respect for the power of nuclear weapons, saying that we HAD to keep the peace (translation = staying strong) because the alternative was unthinkable.

My mother who grew up in Central Florida south of Orlando, told me of 'blackout raids' on a regular basis, and seeing B-17 bombers flying overhead from a training base reportedly in Sebring, Florida (my own research determined it was the 384th Bomb Group flying B-17Es).

On a side note, as a young kid, I remember talking to my Grandmother about my Dad being shot by that Jap sniper, and asked her how she felt about it (a stupid question but that's what kids do sometimes), and she told me very seriously that she prayed for that sniper and his family every night, and when I asked her "why?!?" she told me that the NEXT sniper might have shot my Dad right through the heart or head, and he would never have come back.

My Grandparents and parents are now all gone, but I was blessed with a pretty good memory and recall many of the conversations I had with them, and the things I heard just being in the 'right place at the right time'.

Have a good weekend FRiend.

[onedoug]

Likewise.

[mkjessup]

Thanks for sharing that FRiend, Truman, LeMay, Tibbets and all of those involved had no idea of just how many lives they were ultimately saving, and the families they spared from death, grief and destruction.

Yes, I used Nips and Japs...deal with it. Read “The Rape of Nanking” and “Prisoners of the Japanese.”

And Unit 731. That alone qualified the Japs for being nuked off the face of the Earth, in my opinion.

[hattend]

Wouldn’t surprise me at all.

[mkjessup]

June 6, 1944 - D-Day.

August 6, 1945 - Bomb Day - Hiroshima.

Always bet on "Lucky Number 6" ;)

[hattend]

Where’s the “like” button?

[mkjessup]

My mom also worked those Kaiser shipyards as a secretary.
She met my dad at a cafe in Oakland.
Nope, that’s it...no secret squirrel crap, just sayin’... that’s how I came to be...WWII ship building.

And the height of the war effort, they were turning out new ships at the rate of one a day, imagine that!

Our parents were indeed the 'Greatest Generation', my Uncle Tommy and his eventual wife (my Aunt Audrey) never had any children, in a different universe who knows? You and I might have ended up cousins, because Uncle Tommy was a fierce coffee drinker! lol