Handout photo of Capt. Theodore Van Kirk, center, as he and the rest of the crew return from the mission over Hiroshima, Japan Aug. 6, 1945. He was the navigator. Next to the left is Col. Paul Tibbetts, flight commander.
Posted on 07/29/2014 3:47:56 PM PDT by iowamark
The last surviving crewman of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, died overnight at his Stone Mountain home.
Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, 93, was the navigator on the Aug. 6, 1945 flight that dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb.
With the 2010 death of Morris Jeppson, Van Kirk became the only one of the dozen crew members left.
For a number of years, he lived at a retirement community in Stone Mountain where by chance he found himself sharing the place with James Starnes, an Atlantan who had a front-row seat at history. Starnes was the navigator on the USS Missouri and the mighty battleship’s officer of the deck on Sept. 2, 1945 who greeted Japanese officials boarding to officially surrender.
“We were two individuals who happened to be at historic dates,” said Starnes, who said his friend died Monday after being hospitalized for a few weeks. “The passing always hurts so much. I told someone today that this was the first time I shed a tear for someone in a long time.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Farewell to a true hero.
ping
Another Flier goin’ up to Heaven!
Our precious WWII veterans are passing so quickly. May the Lord comfort his family.
Bttt.
5.56mm
Could we wage WW2 today with our media?
There’d be constant photos of the dead babies and children from this bombing. Or Dresden.
Those men were heroes. They saved an entire generation of GI’s from dying in Kyushu and on the Tokyo Plain.
Vaya con Dios, Captain Van Kirk.
Listening to my 91 year-old mother describe the news of that day is amazing.
Another hero gone.
No. We couldn't.
Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, 93, was the navigator on the Aug. 6, 1945 flight that dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb.
From one navigator to another: job well done, rest in peace.
Duty well served. RIP
Rest in Peace Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk and in the arms of God. Am certain God understands why that bomb had to be dropped. Prayers for all of the friends and family of “Dutch”
Absolutely not, but not because of the media. They'll be very willing accomplices, but the last 80 years have completely destroyed any semblance of honor or patriotism in youth. I fear that if another World War churns to life in my lifetime, complete with a draft/conscription, we'll see American boys (and girls, trannies, whatever) surrendering to the enemy on the battlefield to save their own tails.
America today is no where near America circa 1930, and part of me doubts it ever could be again.
Rest in peace.
Is it typical to have a guy with the rank of colonel as part of a flight crew? I think of colonels as being upper management in an office somewhere.
According to my calculations (based on the the fact that 150,000 or a quarter of the civilian population of Okinawa was killed during the invasion there in addition to the 12,000 allied and 110,000 Japanese military deaths) the atomic bombings (which caused a combined total of 246,000 Japanese deaths) saved 18.75 million Japanese lives and perhaps 150,000 allied lives, assuming that the fighting matched the intensity of the Okinawa campaign.
The TV series, Manhatten, is playing on WGN on Sunday nights. It is the semi-fictionalized story of the scientists at Los Alamos who were burning the midnight oil developing the Atomic bomb in a race against time to bring the war to an end.
I found the first episode interesting — especially since my husband worked at Berkeley’s Lawrence Radiation Lab in the early ‘60s with many of the 2nd generation of physicists.
Some of the leading characters are fictionalized, or based on the stories of composite people. I’m withholding my recommendation until I see more of the series.
He was told to go to a certain coordinate turn sharply and open the doors.
Neither he nor his co-pilot had any idea of the bomb that would be dropped from the other plane.
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