Colonel Paul Tibbets deserves the eternal respect and gratitude of this Nation.
He commanded the B-29 squadron that conducted the mission which saved the lives of several hundred thousand GIs and an untold number of Japanese.
Semper Fi, Colonel.
The Intel.Officer still had personal notes used to give briefings on the number of casualties expected from an invasion & the numbers were over 1 million American casualties & better than 4 TIMES that number of Japanese casualties mostly civilian .
We were literally planning to use everything in the shot locker on any resistance regardless of the casualties to non-combatants ie civilians . The plans called for the use of firebombing & also the use of poison gas to reduce defensive strong points.