It was, he said, his patriotic duty-the right thing to do. Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.” We knew it was going to kill people right and left. “We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. 6, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the bomb. “I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing,” Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on Aug.
The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war. Three days later, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others. 6, 1945, when the plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton “Little Boy” bomb over Hiroshima. “It’s an end of an era,” said Newhouse, who served as Tibbets’ manager for a decade. It was the first time man had used nuclear weaponry against his fellow man. Tibbets’ historic mission in the plane Enola Gay, named for his mother, marked the beginning of the end of World War II. Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said. Tibbets died at his Columbus home after a two month decline from a variety of health problems, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. Paul Tibbets, the pilot and commander of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, died Thursday in Columbus Ohio, a spokesman said. that surrender came only after the deaths of more than 100,000 Japanese people, mostly civilians, and tens of thousands more injured or sickened by radiation.Paul Tibbets, WWII commander of infamous B-29, requested no headstone He recalled how the atomic blast over Hiroshima “kicked us pretty good” and how fillings in the crew’s teeth tingled from the jolt of radiation.Ĭrews earlier had dropped leaflets warning of destruction and urging surrender. Granddad spoke more openly about his historic role in the war.
He had retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in the 1960s.Īfter Tibbets IV chose an Air Force path (unlike his father, Paul Tibbets III, who served as an Army reservist), the two flying Tibbetses became kindred spirits. in Ohio, where he helped launch an air taxi service that grew to be the world’s largest. The two lived several states from each other - Tibbets IV in Alabama and Tibbets Jr. “He told me she was very honored,” said Tibbets IV.Īs a boy, Tibbets IV didn’t have a lot of contact with his grandfather. Concerned that his grave site might draw anti-nuclear protesters, he asked his family to cremate his remains and scatter the ashes over the English Channel, Tibbets IV said. “The reason is he knew the lives that were saved” on both sides of the fighting because the United States didn’t carry out a planned invasion of the Japanese mainland. “If he were here he’d tell you, ‘I never lost one night’s sleep after that mission,’” said Tibbets IV. The end of World War II marked the beginning of the age of nuclear weapons, which have not been used in warfare since. The devastation wrought by the two weapons - the first bomb dubbed “Little Boy,” the second “Fat Man” - hastened Japan’s surrender.
was the first commander of the 509th Composite Group, which executed the bombing run and targeted Nagasaki three days later with another pilot at the helm.
In June, Tibbets IV was put in command of the unit whose origins go back to that mission his grandfather led over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug.
If the elder Tibbets helped his grandson be his own airman, the outcome reflects a stunning case of history coming full circle for the 509th Bomb Wing, based at Whiteman near Knob Noster.