Posted on 08/05/2005 4:04:08 PM PDT by Michael Goldsberry
Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the Pacific campaign would support the A-Bomb.
We demonstrated one on a Japanese city and they still didn't surrender! This is yet another example of why teenaged girls are the stupidest form of life on this planet.
Tibbets is the son of Paul Warfield Tibbets and Enola Gay Tibbets (née Hazard). On February 25, 1937, Paul enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. On August 5, 1945 Colonel Paul Tibbets formally named the B-29 Aircraft 44-86292 Enola Gay after his mother (she was named after the heroine, Enola Gay, of a novel her father had liked). On August 6, 1945 the Enola Gay departed with Tibbets at the controls at 2:45 a.m. for Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time.
In the '60s he was posted as military attache in India but this posting was rescinded after all political parties in India protested his presence.
In 1959, Col. Tibbets was promoted to Brigadier General. He retired from the U.S. Air Force on August 31, 1966.
Tibbets' grandson, Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, IV, as of 2005 is a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, flying a B-2 Spirit for the 509th Bomb Wing, the same unit his grandfather served.
Then there's this little nugget, excerpted from Banzai You Bastards!": "No. It was the atomic bomb what saved us. The Japanese had plans for disposal of all the prisoners, with discretion given to the camp commander whether to bury, drown or shoot them. It was planned for the eighteenth of August 1945, but news of the surrender came through on the sixteenth, two days short of being disposed of. I have copies of those documents if you'd like to see them."
Years ago, some newspaper reporter did a story on the Hiroshima anniversary and asked the Thais, Chinese, Malays and all the others who suffered Jap occupation if we should have dropped the bomb. The general consensus was, "Why did you drop only two?"
There's nothing wrong with saying it was wrenching, or even that you wished there was some other way. But my own mind was settled by my grandfather years ago. He was 42 in 1945 and remembered it clearly.
"It was the only way," he told me.
"You think so?" I asked, good high schooler that I was.
"I know so. There's no way for you to understand how they kept coming and they weren't afraid to die. Only when they knew we could erase them -- and would -- did they stop."
There was no atheist in the foxholes,
And men who never prayed before
Lifted tired and bloodshot eyes to heaven
And begged the Lord to end that awful war.
They told him of their homes and loved ones.
They told him that they'd like to be there.
I believe the bomb that struck Hiroshima
Was the answer to a fighting boy's prayer.
Oh, it went up so loud, it divided up the clouds,
And the houses did vanish away.
And a big ball of light filled the Japanese with fright.
They must have thought it was their judgment day.
Smoke and fire, it did flow through the land of Tokyo;
There was brimstone and dust everywhere.
When it all cleared away, there the cruel Japs did lay.
The answer to our fighting boys' prayers, yes, Lord,
The answer to our fighting boys' prayers.
Karl & Harty, Columbia Records #36892, 1945
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