Posted on 11/01/2007 8:43:44 AM PDT by snippy_about_it
Paul Tibbets Jr., who flew the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb — on Hiroshima, Japan — died this morning at his East Side home. He was 92.
Tibbets had suffered small strokes and heart failure in his final years and had been in hospice care.
He was born in Quincy, Ill., but grew up in Miami after his father moved the family there.
See link for complete story. Tibbets fell in love with flight and, at age 12, volunteered as a backseat assistant to a biplane pilot, dropping leaflets for the Curtiss Candy Co. at fairs, carnivals and other public gatherings.
He joined the Army Air Corps in 1938.
(Excerpt) Read more at dispatch.com ...
Not even for a moment. You should read his books. He never once wavered.
My father was in the Merchant Marine and was prepping a ship for the invasion of Japan. He told me the plan was a) run aground a ship crammed full of infantry, b) discharge infantry, c) try to re-float for a repeat trip; failing that, he was to find some way back to San Francisco to repeat process. The odds of living past step ‘a’ where almost none and they were expecting 80% fatalities. Thanks to Col Tibbets, my dad lived.
There is a meme going around the current opinion industry that Japan was preparing to surrender when the Americans and the bomb pre-empted them. Speaking from direct family experience, from ground level things didn’t look that great.
August ‘45 in Omuta, Japan saw everyone in my maternal grandparents’ neighborhood, including my tubercular grandfather and midwife grandmother, training with bamboo spears to meet American tanks. My mother and her siblings were up in the hills, gaunt from malnutrition and being eaten alive by parasites. My father (wouldn’t talk about it, but probably) was training to be a kamikaze at the grand old age of fifteen. So much ground was being dug up and concrete was being poured that you can wander what looks like pristine wilderness and come upon fortifications.
To sum up, Japan in ‘45 was not a society ready to quit. It was a society ready to die. Think North Korea. The bombs were dropped at the end of summer. There wasn’t going to be a fall harvest that year and the winter would have been murder.
The US could have put off all action for just a year and out of a population of around 90 million, at least 10 percent would have died. The majority would have been children under the age of 12 followed by the elderly. And that says nothing for how many Chinese (remember them?), Koreans and other Asians would have died as the Japanese war machine continued to strangle their infrastructures in the pursuit of a horrific conflict.
The sudden end of the war, however it was achieved, was a deliverance for millions of Asian children. It is a shining example of the maxim that the most humane thing to do in a conflict situation is to end it. So on behalf of many people on earth who wouldn’t be here but for your courage, dedication and loyalty, I salute you General Tibbets, your colleague General Sweeney and all the members of the 544th Bombardment Group.
Okay, I’ve had my say. Flame away, folks! BTW, I’m here because my Dad volunteered for the Korean War USAF. Strange world, isn’t it? I’ll be remembering him and Generals Tibbets and Sweeney tonight at my church’s All Saints Mass.
It was a tiny bomb, by modern standards.
Col. Tibbets probably did more to end WW-II than any other individual and by his actions undoubtedly saved millions of both military and Japanese civilian lives.
“Strange world, isn’t it?”
Yes it is! Thanks for the story, as I’ve seen the footage on documentaries of the children and women training with sticks, but you never know how widespread it really was. (Japanese propoganda?).
What is so great is that the U.S. and Japan, Germany and to a certain extent Russia are allies and friends now. Compare that to the tribal clashes that go on elsewhere in the world (Middle East for example) that seem to go on for hundreds of years.
Cordially,
Thank you! Yes, real peace has been achieved between the US and its old adversaries. It annoys me when people take that for granted-it really is a huge achievement. It says a lot about the character of our people that we resolve what should be age-old conflict matters so easily.
Thanks!
No. He made that clear at every interview right up to the end.
I couldn’t have said it better than #71 did. Thank you and it was also beautifully written.
I got question guys maybe Miltary freepers tell me this he name the plane after HIS OWN MOTHER
That cold
RIP, Colonel Tibbits.
There’s an excellent interview of him in the old (ca 1960s) BBC TV series, “The World at War.” He did his duty, and saved millions of lives. Americans AND Japanese.
My dad was on MacArthur’s G-3 staff that planned the invasion of Japan that never came about. Not only might our fathers have perished, but many of us post-war “baby-boomers” wouldn’t be here, either.
I guess I failed to say my uncle and father in law in addition to my Dad got to come home.
Mine too.
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