Forty-three seconds later, after the bomb detonated at 1,890 feet, the city was decimated 71,000 were killed or assumed dead, 68,000 were injured and 60,000 buildings were destroyed. Asked whether he had any regrets, he said: 'Hell no, no second thoughts. In the pleasantly warm tropical night, during the thirteen hour flight. At 17 seconds past 8:15 a.m., "Little Boy", a 9,000-pound uranium-235 core-fissionable atomic bomb was released over Hiroshima, Japan. In March this year, Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, also said the bomb had saved lives. Pictures of the B-29, pilot Tibbets and other crew that bombed Hiroshima on. FEREBEE was the bombardier and Captain THEODORE VAN KIRK (1921-2014) was the navigator on the historic flight that lifted off from Tinian Island at 2:45 A.M. Some chose to keep a low profile and others spoke. The Enola Gay, a modified B-29, dropped the world's first atomic bomb used in war. On August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Buckeye Aviation Book Company, 1989, paperback. Each has signed beneath his image on the portrait page. The Enola Gay Crew signs a book titled Flight of the Enola Gay.īook signed: "Theodore J. The summer of 1945 was indeed an anxious one as Allied and American forces gathered for the inevitable invasion of the Japanese homeland. This year, 2005, marks the sixtieth year since the end of World War II. Instead of 12 men on the Enola Gay, people would think there were only nine.ENOLA GAY CREW: PAUL TIBBETS, THOMAS FEREBEE and THEODORE VAN KIRK On this occasion, the surviving members of the Enola Gay crew would like the opportunity to issue a joint statement. Jeppson was worried that without some addition, the importance of his role, along with that of Navy Capt. Jeppson was concerned because he learned his name, along with two others, would be absent from a list of crew members long-ago stenciled on the side of the infamous B-29 bomber by the military. The new Udvar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was about to open with the Enola Gay on display. VanKirk, also known as 'Dutch,' was the navigator of the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, that. It was 2003 when Jeppson felt compelled to come forward. VanKirk had been the lone surviving crew member since the death of Morris Jeppson on March 30, 2010. Today he lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Molly, retired after a career spent at the helm of a handful of high-tech companies and working as consultant for the Department of Energy. Jeppson turned to graduate studies at University of California, Berkeley, after leaving the military. Now 90, Tibbets lives in a modest brick home in a well-kept neighborhood in Columbus and travels occasionally for air shows and veterans’ ceremonies. The 13-man crew for the Enola Gay on its historic Hishoma run were as follows: Colonel Paul Tibbetts, pilot and mission commander. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” the 84-year-old said from his suburban Atlanta retirement home near the base of Stone Mountain, where a large relief memorial carved out of the bare rock depicts Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. “I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. The 9,000-pound bomb fell down toward the city as the Enola Gay banked away, the crew hoping to escape with their lives.ĭespite decades of controversy over whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb - which left some 140,000 dead in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later - Van Kirk remains convinced it was necessary because it shortened the war and relieved the Allies of having to mount a land invasion that might have cost far more lives on both sides.
Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned - the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule. It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalls. Van Kirk, then 24, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped “Little Boy” - the world’s first atomic bomb - over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug.