He helped his father by rowing flats of coal up and down the Susquehanna River. But if anyone has one, I want to have one more than my enemy."īorn in 1921, in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, Van Kirk was the son of a coalminer. In this documentary Tibbets co-produced with the Buckeye Aviation Book Company, Reflections on Hiroshima, he recounts his memories of the day the atomic. I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world – I'd like to see them all abolished. Colonel (later General) Paul Tibbets was the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. "And atomic weapons don't settle anything. The delivery system for these bombs, the Superfortress, represented the latest. Another atomic attack on Nagasaki followed three days later. "The whole World War II experience shows that wars don't settle anything," he said. On August 6, 1945, the crew of a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare, called Little Boy, on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Most of the lives saved were Japanese".īut his exploits also made him wary of war. Enola Gay Facts - 34: Private Richard Nelson was the radio operator and at 20 years of age was the youngest of the crew who relayed coded messages about the Hiroshima mission Enola Gay Facts - 35: Air Force captain Theodore 'Dutch' Van Kirk (Febru July 28, 2014) was the navigator of the Enola Gay. Our mission was to end the Second World War, simple as that." He believed the bombings were necessary because they eliminated the need for an Allied land invasion that could have cost more lives: "I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. "I have never apologised for what we did to Hiroshima and I never will. When it came time to answer audience questions, Van Kirk mostly found himself recalling technical details of the mission - for example, the weight of the Enola Gay at takeoff.īut, when asked what a child should take away from his address, he didn’t mince words."Do I regret what we did that day? No, sir, I do not," Van Kirk said in 2010. It just gave Japan the excuse to get out of the war and save face.” “The (dropping of the) atomic bombs did not win the war. “The Japanese were a licked people before we ever dropped the atomic bombs,” Van Kirk said. The crew of the B-29 'Enola Gay' bomber which on August 6, 1945, dropped on Hiroshima the first atomic bomb in history The crew of the B-29 'Enola Gay' bomber which on August 6, 1945, dropped on. He went without regrets, but knowing his controversial place in history, he explicitly asked to be buried without a headstone. Since the beginning of the year, American B-29s had been systematically demolishing Japan’s urban areas. While serving in Europe, the crew of the Red Gremlin was given a number of important missions, including transporting Generals Mark Clark and Dwight D. For Japan, the war had been lost for some time. Tibbets, who lived in Columbus, died in 2007. Eighty thousand people had been killed instantly and two-thirds of the city destroyed by the atomic bomb dropped by the B-29 Enola Gay on Aug. Of the Enola Gay’s 12 crewmen, Van Kirk is the last survivor. The bombing of Nagasaki was carried out three days later by another bomber named Bock’s Car. It was piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets and I think the name belonged to Tibbets’ grandmother. “People ask, ‘Does that maneuver have a name?’” he said. Enola Gay was the name given to the B29 bomber that carried out the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima Japan in 1945. The B-29 bomber stayed airborne, hovering above a terrifying. 6, 1945, a city died, and 70,000 of its inhabitants. He also recalled the exceptionally sharp turn Tibbets had made to get their B-29 as far from the blast as possible. A fter the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. “It reminded you of a pot of boiling oil,” he said. Tibbets - Van Kirk recalled being able to see nothing but blackness.
Looking down out of the Enola Gay - named for the mother of the plane’s pilot, Paul W. That’s the reason they did not react after we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.” “To this day,” he said, “I felt the Japanese thought we only had one bomb. Theodore Dutch Van Kirk, the navigator of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb used as a weapon of war on Hiroshima, Japan, offers his. The bomb leveled Hiroshima with an equivalent force of 15,000 tons of TNT. “But, if you’re in a war, you have to have the guts to fight the war to win it.” “You’re going to kill a lot of civilians. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, prevented that.
The greater evil Van Kirk referred to was a possible invasion of Japan that likely would have resulted in mass American casualties. With the annual Vectren Dayton Air Show set for the weekend, Van Kirk’s testimony was a potent and timely reminder of the military’s might.