Paul Tibbets Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Was Given No Funeral or Gravestone

War History Online ^ | Feb 25, 2024 | Rosemary Giles

[SunkenCiv]

Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, better known as the man who piloted the Enola Gay during the bombing of Hiroshima, became a well-known figure in the United States at the end of the Second World War. Despite his fame, Tibbets asked that upon his death he receive no funeral or gravestone.

[ExSES]

I remember visiting him 2 or 3 times while I was a kid. He married my Mother's High School friend.

[scrabblehack]

One of the criticisms of the Pearl Harbor movie from the early 2000’s I had heard was that it was extremely rare for any soldier to switch theatres (from European to Pacific, say).

It sounds like Tibbets was one of the few that did.

[JimRed]

I think we would have wound up applying the "Carthage option" to Japan: total genocide.

I seem to recall a general or admiral saying something like "When we are finished the Japanese language will only be spoken in Hell".

[JimRed]

OK, AI seems to think it was Admiral Halsey.

[Max in Utah]

There was no transportation in Japan by 1945.. The rice harvest would not have been distributed.

Trains, railroad yards and bridges had been destroyed by bombing. What little fuel Japan had was mostly reserved for military use. Trucks and boats were "targets of opportunity" for American fighter planes.