Posted on 07/17/2004 7:40:36 AM PDT by Radix
MILTON - There was a break in the clouds, and Charles W. Sweeney, a young pilot, changed history.
His B-29 bomber dangerously low on fuel, Sweeney finally captured a glimpse of the target below and delivered the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II. It was the second and last time an atomic weapon had been used, and the Japanese surrendered a few days after the Aug. 9, 1945, bombing.
Sweeney, a retired Air Force general, died Thursday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was 84.
He was a Milton resident and a graduate of North Quincy High School.
Sweeney, whose passion for flying was stoked at the Squantum air field in Quincy, talked frequently about his fateful flight over the years and never spoke of any regrets. He was 25 at the time and had never before dropped a bomb on an enemy target.
I looked upon it as a duty. I just wanted the war to be over, so we could get back home to our loved ones,'' Sweeney told The Patriot Ledger in a 1995 interview. I hope my missions were the last ones of their kind that will ever be flown.''
Sweeney is believed to be the only person to fly in both the Nagasaki bombing and its predecessor, the bombing of Hiroshima three days earlier. He flew an instrument plane accompanying the Enola Gay during the Hiroshima run, and later recalled the bluish-white flash that filled the sky after the bomb's impact.
His own bomber, the Bock's Car, is not as well-known in history, but the bombing was certainly no less harrowing. The flight had fuel problems from the start, and clouds and smoke were covering the mission's primary target, the city of Kokura.
After making several dangerous passes over the city, Sweeney abandoned the city for Nagasaki. Only a break in the clouds allowed the bomb to be dropped, Sweeney said.
He ended World War II, which changed the course of history,'' Sweeney's son, Joseph said Friday.
His motto was that the best defense was a strong offense. He was very proud of the United States military and he loved the Marines because they took all the islands for him,'' Joe Sweeney said.
Charles Sweeney came from a family of Marines. Three of his brothers and two sons were in the Marine Corps.
After the bombing, he visited Japan several times and saw the devastation.
It was a terrible thing to see,'' he told The Patriot Ledger in 1995.
The city was totally devastated and the few people who were there still seemed stunned by what had happened,'' he said then.
Charles Sweeney wrote the book, War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission,'' because of what he called cockamamie theories'' that the bombings were unnecessary.
He became an outspoken defender of the bombing, appearing on the television show Larry King and speaking at colleges and universities.
He became a brigadier general in 1956, at the time, the youngest man in the Air Force to reach that rank. He retired in 1976.
Joseph Sweeney said his father loved flying.
It was his whole life. He always said he was born in the right place at the right time,'' Joseph Sweeney said. He was the best. There was no better.''
Your panties, as well as your ignorance, are showing again, sugar.
Bump
That was outstanding.
I salute him and all who served us so gallantly in WW2.
...AMERICA ..HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.
I disagree with with you AND most of the posters on this thread.
I believe that in time of war that the TOTAL death and destruction of the enemy is the only answer. Definition: Take NO prisoners. Kill ALL enemies. Kill the offspring of ALL enemies. Kill the fathers and mothers who created and bore the EVIL. Kill their relatives. Kill their pets. Kill their farm animals, if any. You get the idea.
I am wondering, to this day, why we left ANY Japanese alive. I am puzzled as to why there is still an island in the Pacific named "Japan." It should be a desolate pile of radioactive ash or just more Pacific ocean albeit a bit shallow.
Likewise for Germany despite being of German extraction.
With my approach do you think that the Soviets would have considered entering into a cold war with us? I think not. They would have been shivering in their boots and 50 years of attempted Soviet world domination would have been eliminated.
If the USA would use my approach in the war on terror it would send a very strong message.....
Don't Eff with the USA.
Get a clue or maybe just surrdender now.....you'll be one of the first infidels they kill.
Me thinks "the boner" would more appropiately be called "the stoner".
I just read his response to me a few seconds ago. I responded back. I think it is very clear "The boner" has either not studied the historical facts surrounding the decision to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima with atomic weapons, or does not understand the gravity of the situation that existed in that moment in time. Perhaps both are true. The Japanese went through a time during WWII much like our Nation did during Civil War times. They, like us, were very misguided.
Meg33 says,
AMERICA ... HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE
well put Meg.
BTTT
Bump
Well put, BMC's anti nuclear stance precludes any mitigating
use of those bombs.
Anyone who has studied the plans for Operation Olympic realizes that hundreds of thousands of innocent japanese would have committed suicide either by attacking our troops or by other means as they did on Okinawa, Tinian or Saipan.
IN ANY EVENT, THERE IS NO DOUBT THE JAPANESE OR THE GERMANS
WOULD HAVE USED THESE WEAPONS AGAINST US IF THEY HAD DEVELOPED THEM FIRST.
I've heard that they have recently released more of the documents that show there was a major problem with Operation Olympic. Top Allied brass was planning for a defense strength of about 360,000 troops maximum in Kyushu. These secret documents show that Truman and his planners found that the Japanese defense forces had 579,000 in Kyushu. This included 10 combat divisions. The numbers were rising. This was in the summer, for a planned invasion on Nov 1. Operation Olympic forces totalled 770,000 including the Naval personnel that would not be going to the beach.
We had a planned invasion, that was roughly equal to the repelling forces on the ground. And they were armed, military forces, not farmers. The defense forces were three times the numbers planned on, and roughly equal to our own forces.
You make the call as Truman. You can:
1) Call the operation off. Hope that conventional bombing and the blockade will make a people with the will to defend their island beyond our our ability to predict their behavior will quit. Of course millions of Japanese will starve. Hundreds of thousands of their POWs may either starve or be killed.
2) Continue with the operation. Hope that we get "lucky" on a macro level. Iwo Jima was one for one. Hope the Japanese homeland will be less? Hundreds of thousands of Japanese military will die. Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops will die. The house to house fighting may still take place, with much smaller force on the Allied side than planned. We will have to use more conventional bombing and continue the blockade. Millions of Japanese may die, from starvation or war. Hundreds of thousands of Allied POWs may be starved or killed.
3) Upset everyone's apple cart. Use nukes. Make the Russians fear us. Take Patton seriously. Make the Japanese realize they are DEFEATED. With a big D. Make the Japanese realize that victory is not the goal, continued existance is. Of course the Japanese still did not have to surrender, but now we could have made more nukes by the time of Operation Olympic, and been able to use them tactically, if necessary.
Of course Truman made the right decision for our country. Japan sensibilities were not his worry. We won the war. Japan surrendered, Russia did not interfere, we did not have to do Operation Olympic. We've been respected (feared) by our "friends" and foes in the world for the last 60 years.
So what part of success are we arguing about?
DK
Ever read Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini?
If not, you might consider doing so.
I attended a conference with his son last year. I regret never reading his book.
From August 6-14 my father was in a troop carrier in the Panama Canal on his way to Japan to be part of a first-wave paratroop strike force that would be dropped into a battlefield on one of the Japanese homeland islands AFTER a tactical nuke had been dropped there.
Thank God for the bomb...I would not be here if it had not been dropped strategically on civilian populations as opposed to being used later as a tactical battlefield weapon.
It was not dropped on a civilian population, it was dropped on two cities that had heavy war industrial production, and Hiroshima even had an Army HQ in it.
I'm glad it stopped the war too. My uncle was driving the landing craft to those battles. He doesn't talk about it much.
DK
Are you naturally that stupid or do you have to practice?
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