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Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, better known as the man who piloted the Enola Gay during the bombing of Hiroshima, became a well-known figure in the United States at the end of the Second World War. Despite his fame, Tibbets asked that upon his death he receive no funeral or gravestone. Paul Tibbets started his career as an abdominal surgeon before enlisting in the US Army Air Corps. He initially served for three years, qualifying as a pilot in 1938, and opted to stay on active duty when the US entered the Second World War. While he is best known for...

I saw this interview of Paul Tibbets who piloted the plane that did it. Interesting (to me at least) what led up to August 6 for him with the B-29's development and his preparation for the bomb drop. These are about 20 minutes each. Part 1 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2n3EmNtqY&t=159s Part 2 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UelE357z58M

Early in the morning of August 6, 1945, a U.S. Air Force B29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off from the its base in Tinian, near Guam, and headed for the city of Hiroshima in southern Japan. It was carrying a 9,700 top-secret bomb named Little Boy. Its pilot was Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., who led a crew of 12 men on a mission that would change the history of the world....... Pilot Tibbetts Jr and other crew members believed to the end of their lives that the bomb was necessary — and they say that it ultimately saved...

On August 6, 1945, 30-year-old U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. took to the sky in the Enola Gay, his Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber. His destination, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, was not an especially notable target. His payload, however, a single bomb nicknamed “Little Boy,” would change the course of history. True watershed moments in history are rare — the agricultural revolution is one such example, as was the Battle of Salamis, the advent of Jesus Christ, and the fall of Western Rome. Yet in the last 1,500 years, no two distinct epochs of time...

Never-before-seen photos of the aircraft crew that dropped the world's first atomic bomb receiving a heroes' welcome upon returning from the historic mission have come to light. The black and white photos show the 12 airmen posing before and after they deployed the B-29 bomber 'Enola Gay' to drop the devastating bomb on Hiroshima in Japan. One photo is of pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets being given an immediate gallantry decoration by a general after stepping off the aircraft.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenewsstar/obituary.aspx?n=paul-warfield-tibbets&pid=182059677&fhid=20705 Death of the son of the Enola Gay pilot in Monroe, LA

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, shortly after 8:00 a.m. local time, a lone American B-29 was conducting what seemed to be a reconnaissance flight at high altitude over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. At about 16 minutes after 8:00, the aircraft released an object over the centre of town. Attached to parachutes, the object floated down slowly enough to give the four-engine Boeing Superfortress time to turn and lumber out of the airspace. The atom bomb exploded at about 1,900 feet above the centre of Hiroshima. The devastation was cataclysmic. Immediate casualties, dead and injured, numbered approximately 115,000....

Seventy years ago, the B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Paul Tibbets, Jr., dropped an atomic bomb, Little Boy, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast and ensuing radiation killed an estimated 150,000 people. Though the devastation from the bombing was astounding, it did not bring American’s war with Japan or World War II to an immediate end. Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, and the Empire of Japan’s leaders finally capitulated.

By May of 1945 an exhausted and overrun Germany had surrendered. The war in Europe was over. The United States, aided by Great Britain, moved closer and closer to Japan. Massive suicide attacks by the Japanese caused great losses to the Pacific Fleet, but did not deter its drive. Japan, thinking the Soviet Union was a friendly neutral in the war in the Pacific, submitted unofficial peace feelers to the United States through them. The Soviet Union, secretly wanting to join the war against Japan, suppressed the feelers. Ironically, the Japanese military made it impossible to pursue peace directly, as...

There's a museum in Tokyo dedicated to Japan's ample history of warfare. But if you visit the plainly named Military Museum, you'll find no reference to the grotesque medical experiments the Japanese army conducted in World War II or the sex slaves it kidnapped.

This week Major Theodore Van Kirk, the last surviving Veteran of the Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, joined the rest of his comrades. His passing is a reminder of why using the atomic bomb was the right thing. In August 1945 the Allied Powers, led by the United States, were at war with Imperial Japan in the latter days of World War II. Japan would not give up. For every ten thousand Japanese soldiers that were killed by the Allies only a minuscule amount gave up; usually in the single digits. We were at...

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...

Studs Terkel: We're seated here, two old gaffers. Me and Paul Tibbets, 89 years old, brigadier-general retired, in his home town of Columbus, Ohio, where he has lived for many years. Paul Tibbets: Hey, you've got to correct that. I'm only 87. You said 89. Studs Terkel: I know. See, I'm 90. So I got you beat by three years. Studs Terkel: Now we've had a nice lunch, you and I and your companion. I noticed as we sat in that restaurant, people passed by. They didn't know who you were. But once upon a time, you flew a plane...

Pres Truman Thank you for the hard decisions that allowed my grandpa to live

Theodore Van Kirk is sitting at his desk in a detached bungalow in the gated community outside Atlanta, Georgia, where he lives. The room is cluttered with boxes, trinkets, shelves full of books on wartime history and photographs of planes on the walls...

Morris R. Jeppson, 87, one of two weaponeers who armed the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, prompting the surrender of Japanese troops and the end of World War II, died March 30 at a hospital in Las Vegas. His family could not provide a specific cause of death but said he had been hospitalized for back pain and a severe headache. Known as "Dick," Mr. Jeppson was a 23-year-old Army Air Forces second lieutenant when he boarded the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, for what would be his first and only combat mission. It was the...

Hiroshima Day remembrance. In California, Moonbats will be ragging on America again for defeating Japanese fascism. Corner of Seal Beach Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway. Sunday, August 3, 2008. Counters are needed. From 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

When I was a child, my mother had one of the early coffee table books on display in the living room. “The Family of Man” (http://www.amazon.com/Family-Man-Greatest-Photographic-Exhibition/dp/B000J1AMR6/ref=sr_1_1/103-5108515-2439061?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193940207&sr=1-1) was, to a kid in grade school in the mid-50s, a fascinating book. There was little TV in those days, few magazines for kids, and of course, no video games, computers, or cell phones. This book’s 500 or so black and white pictures, taken from many magazines, showed a vast array of people from many nations engaged in a wide variety of activities. I spent hours and hours staring at the pictures, fascinated. I...

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...

On August 6, 1945 the American Air Force incinerated Hiroshima, Japan with an atomic bomb. On August 9 Nagasaki was obliterated. The fireballs killed some 175,000 people. They followed months of horror, when American airplanes firebombed civilians and reduced cities to rubble. Facing extermination, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. The invasion of Japan was cancelled, and countless American lives were saved. The Japanese accepted military occupation, embraced a constitutional government, and renounced war permanently. The effects were so beneficent, so wide-ranging and so long-term, that the bombings must be ranked among the most moral acts ever committed. The bombings have been...