OT: RIP Paul Tibbets

[Roswellian]

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 1, 2007

Filed at 11:53 a.m. ET

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted almost to his dying day that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

 

Tibbets died at his Columbus home, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

 

Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said.

 

Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.

 

The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton ''Little Boy'' bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others.

 

Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.

 

''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. 6, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the bomb. ''We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.''

 

Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.

 

''I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did,'' he said in a 1975 interview.

 

''You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal.''

 

He added: ''I sleep clearly every night.''

 

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.

 

He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.

 

After the war, Tibbets said in 2005, he was dogged by rumors claiming he was in prison or had committed suicide.

 

''They said I was crazy, said I was a drunkard, in and out of institutions,'' he said. ''At the time, I was running the National Crisis Center at the Pentagon.''

 

Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He later moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in 1985.

 

But his role in the bombing brought him fame -- and infamy -- throughout his life.

 

In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.

 

He said the display ''was not intended to insult anybody,'' but the Japanese were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology.

 

Tibbets again defended the bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution.

 

The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have examined the context of the bombing, including the discussion within the Truman administration of whether to use the bomb, the rejection of a demonstration bombing and the selection of the target.

 

Veterans groups objected that it paid too much attention to Japan's suffering and too little to Japan's brutality during and before World War II, and that it underestimated the number of Americans who would have perished in an invasion.

 

They said the bombing of Japan was an unmitigated blessing for the United States and its fighting men and the exhibit should say so.

 

Tibbets denounced it as ''a damn big insult.''

 

The museum changed its plan, and agreed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay without commentary, context or analysis.

 

He told the Dispatch in 2005 he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war.

[Roswellian]

I met the man on two occasions as well as Fred Olivi (a co-pilot from Bocks Car the B-29 that dropped the Nagasaki Bomb) and have heard them both recount their experiances.

 

Both men were unashamed but not proud to have been part of the use of nukes. Mr Olivi was more passionate about the lack of knowledge about what was really happening during those days. He pointed out that conventional "fire bombing" raids did more damage and killed more civilians.

 

Both men are now gone as are so many from that generation.

[Mudbass]

 

I met the man on two occasions as well as Fred Olivi (a co-pilot from Bocks Car the B-29 that dropped the Nagasaki Bomb) and have heard them both recount their experiances. Both men were unashamed but not proud to have been part of the use of nukes. Mr Olivi was more passionate about the lack of knowledge about what was really happening during those days. He pointed out that conventional "fire bombing" raids did more damage and killed more civilians. Both men are now gone as are so many from that generation.

 

 

Neither man should be ashamed. America was a very different place prior to 1945. When we went to war, went to war to win it. It wasn't like it is today where we go to war so as long as nobody gets hurt. And I think it's laughable that some say we should have done a "demonstration" of the atomic bomb before using it. I guess they think seeing what a nuke could do would have made the Japanese surrender. They need to be reminded that we did do a demonstration. It was on the city of Hiroshima and it didn't impress the Japanese enough to give up the war so 5 days later we had to drop another one.

[RSBro]

 

Neither man should be ashamed. America was a very different place prior to 1945. When we went to war, went to war to win it. It wasn't like it is today where we go to war so as long as nobody gets hurt. And I think it's laughable that some say we should have done a "demonstration" of the atomic bomb before using it. I guess they think seeing what a nuke could do would have made the Japanese surrender. They need to be reminded that we did do a demonstration. It was on the city of Hiroshima and it didn't impress the Japanese enough to give up the war so 5 days later we had to drop another one.

 

 

Yeah, I really don't understand either why anyone ever should have had to feel bad about it? We were at war.

There's this one show on HBO they show somewhat often about the fallout from afterwards and all this attempt to garner resentment or whatnot. I guess all those flicks and documentaries about Pearl Harbor were for posterity... To quote Kurt Russell, "You called down the thunder and now you got it!"

[mrmatt64]

Man, I've lived in Columbus for most of my life and never knew that dude lived here!

 

 

Mr. Matt

[Thumper]

RIP. I have a lot of respect for a man who did something that was unpleasant, but deemed necessary at the time.

 

I took a class in 20th century Japanese history while working on my teaching certificate at PSU. I argued the point in class that the US could have exploded the bomb in Tokyo Bay and made the same impression on Japan's leadership. In hindsight, the second bomb at Nagasaki was probably unnecessary.

[bholder]

RIP. He may well have slept well at night, but not everyone involved in that project did. I had a Physics professor my freshman year who had been part of the Manhattan Project, she apparently had trouble coming to terms with it - she was in the latter stages of drinking herself to death, and by my senior year, had succeeded.

 

I understand both perspectives. Using the bomb saved both American and Japanese lives, without a doubt, and those bombings were far from the most morally questionable decisions we as a country made in that war. Still, I can see how being part of the letting of that particular genie out of its bottle could weigh on one.