U.S. pilot who dropped Hiroshima bomb dies:

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#1

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the U.S. bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945, died on Thursday at age 92, a newspaper reported.

Tibbets, who died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, had suffered strokes and was ill from heart failure, the Columbus Dispatch said in its online edition.

An experienced pilot who had flown some of the first bombing missions over Germany during World War Two, Tibbets was a 30-year-old colonel commanding the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress bomber named for his mother.

After a six-hour flight to Japan, Tibbets’ crew dropped the bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m.

“If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified,” Tibbets said later. “The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire.”

The bomb instantly killed about 78,000 people. By the end of 1945, the number of dead had reached about 140,000 out of an estimated population of 350,000.

Three days later the United States dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed “Fat Man” on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, bringing World War Two to an end.

Tibbets said in interviews he did not regret the decision to drop the bomb.

He became a brigadier general before leaving the military in 1966. Later he was president of Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus-based international air-taxi service, the newspaper said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0143239820071101

#2

As a normal Bomber pilot you can always argue that your bombs may never have killed anyone. As an A Bomb pilot you cant. He lived with this for 60 years and always affirmed that he agreed with it. I would have loved to have met him.

#3

I didn’t see this in the article. He, in accordance with his wishes, was buried without a headstone and at a secret location in order to avoid his final resting place becoming a protest shrine…

#4

Now that is a shame. He should have been buried with military honours in Arlington.

#5

Saw part of interview with him on news tonight.

He said nothing’s moral in war and he did what had to be done.

I respect a man who knew what had to be done; did it; and didn’t let revisionist hectoring by people who didn’t face the same problem beat him down into an apology or false regret.

A fine warrior when we needed him.

The Japanese, and the world, should be bloody grateful he and the other A bomb crew avoided the slaughter and devastation that invasion would have brought.

#6

Agree wholeheartedly with RS. I saw it on the news this morning and all I could think of was “Jolly good show”.

I bet all the assorted anti-war/anti (Western) nuclear weapons lot were gutted that he didn’t repent on his deathbed!

#7

My comments above about General Paul Tibbets notwithstanding, I’m a pacificist at heart and share a lot of the sentiments of anti-war activists.

The difference is, I think I know when the time comes to abandon the world we’d like to have and deal with the world we’ve got.

I respect anyone like the Quakers or non-religious conscientious objectors who are following principle in the face of much hostility during war, just as much as I respect Tibbets, or millions of anonymous land, sea and air grunts who faced a bloody sight worse, and for a lot, lot longer, than Tibbets and Co did in flying into a relatively defenceless Japan (although that ignores their prior service). It all takes courage. It’s not the same thing as thinking that their actions are all of equal value.

The difference in the value of actions is that Tibbets and his men did something to end the horror of war, even if he and his crew had to create more horror, while those who refuse to serve have the satisfaction of observing their high moral code but, due to the unwillingness of most of the rest of the population in warring nations to take the same view, do nothing to stop war or bring it to a quicker conclusion to end the suffering they abhor.

They’re a fine example of what we as humans should be, but in the end a glorious and self-sacrificing waste of effort that achieves nothing except whatever sense of satisfaction comes from martyrdom.

If there’s going to be self-sacrifice in a total war like WWII, better to aim it at the enemy than one’s own nation, because that’s the only way it’ll do anything to end the war. Taking yourself out of the action only prolongs the war.

If there has to be sacrifice, better that the enemy be sacrificed.

Which is what Tibbets and his crew did.

It’s sad that the Yakusuni Shrine is venerated and that Hiroshima has been converted into a totem for supposed inhumanity (unlike, say, the Rape of Nanking or the Burma railway which are just as much totems of inhumanity, if incoveniently by the Japanese as perpetrators rather than their preferred status of nuclear victims), while Tibbets can’t get a public grave which could have a headstone which says something like

"One of a handful of men who alone brought vast death and suffering, that much, much more might be avoided.

And the death and suffering he and his crew caused was a drop in the ocean to the death and suffering inflicted by the brutal and evil regime they brought to surrender, which surrender avoided much more death and suffering for the people of many nations, not least Japan which now glories in victimhood rather than acknowledging the circumstances it created which led to the avoidable suffering it brought upon itself at the hands of this man."

Or something along those lines.

No wonder he didn’t want a known grave.

The modern politically correct world couldn’t handle a proper inscription.

#8

Amen to that, brother. Couldn’t have put it better.

#9

So sad to see aother veteran pass on. Of course Tibbets exploits will always be remembered over the bravery and actions of his comrades and others who had to fight this terrible war.

It is a shame and an insult he was unfairly and shamefully targeted by sections of the uneducated, ignorant anti war element in our society. But Tibbets actions gave them the right and freedom to do this. Ironic.

digger

#10

Predictable, and ironic or maybe just downright hypocritical, from the nation that still hasn’t owned up to and made an unequivocal apology for the whole bloody war, not to mention China beforehand.

I feel sorry for the individual people who suffered at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Tokyo, but not as sorry as I do for, say, the six year old Australian boy shot dead by the Japanese in northern Papua in mid-1942 because he wouldn’t stay still to be beheaded after the bastards had beheaded his father and several other people in front of him.

There was no need for that. There was a need for the A bombs.

Hiroshima survivors regret pilot never said sorry

Tokyo
November 3, 2007

JAPANESE survivors of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima voiced regret that the American pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb died without saying sorry.

Paul Warfield Tibbets, whose B-29, Enola Gay, dropped the bomb named “Little Boy” on August 6, 1945, died on Thursday at his home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 92.

Mr Tibbets never expressed regret for the bombing that led to the end of World War II at a cost of 140,000 dead immediately, and 80,000 others succumbing in the aftermath, according to Hiroshima officials.

“He did not apologise, arguing, like the American government, that the bombing saved millions of American and Japanese lives by ending the war,” said Nori Tohei, 79, who survived.

“But I wanted him to visit Hiroshima and take a direct look at what he did as a human being. He was following orders as a military man. But I wanted him to recognise it was a mistake, and apologise to those who were killed or were long suffering side-effects.”

Mr Tohei turned 17 on August 9, 1945, three days after the Hiroshima blast, and the day a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The United States has never formally apologised for the attacks.

Although Mr Tibbets saw little of the devastation of Hiroshima, he would walk the streets of Nagasaki a few weeks after the second bomb. “A couple of the streets we walked had swelled,” he told the Columbus Dispatch in 2003, as he described the buckling of the earth caused by the intensity of the blast. Damnedest thing you’ve ever seen."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/hiroshima-survivors-regret-pilot-never-said-sorry/2007/11/02/1193619144992.html

#11

Saw part of interview with him on news tonight.

He said nothing’s moral in war and he did what had to be done.

I respect a man who knew what had to be done; did it; and didn’t let revisionist hectoring by people who didn’t face the same problem beat him down into an apology or false regret.

A fine warrior when we needed him.

The Japanese, and the world, should be bloody grateful he and the other A bomb crew avoided the slaughter and devastation that invasion would have brought.

Paul Tibbets - was one of the main criminals of WW II. He is personally guilty of the slaughter of thousands upon thousands civilians in the most brutal way.

If someone had really wanted to avoid invasion into Japan, new victims and devastation, they would have just signed peace treaty with Japan in 1945.

The only person who can be thanked for the end of the war is the Japanese monarch.

#12

I wonder whether his location was known when he was alive?

#13

Being vaporised in an instant would be in my top few ways to go. All war deaths are brutal. Like all forms of death, some are just quicker, with less suffering, than others.

Burns and radiation sickness are a different issue, but so are a lot of other war injuries.

If someone had really wanted to avoid invasion into Japan, new victims and devastation, they would have just signed peace treaty with Japan in 1945.

Very true. So why didn’t Japan do it sooner?

That option had been open to Japan since it started losing the war. It’s not Tibbets’, or the Allies’, fault the dominant Japanese leadership was determined to fight on until Japan was destroyed.

One reason surrender wasn’t accepted before the A bombs was that elements in the Japanese military wanted a land invasion so they could grind down the Allies and win better terms of peace. As distinct from surrender.

The A bombs, along with the crushing Soviet advances against the Japanese at the same time, tipped Japan into surrender. There was no sign it was about to surrender before that.

The A bombs were more significant as Japan was much more concerned to preserve the home islands than colonies.

The only person who can be thanked for the end of the war is the Japanese monarch.

Should we thank him for permitting the Pacific War to start, and for permitting the invasion of China? If Japan hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t have needed to surrender.

It’s a misconception, and flows from post-war Japanese pro-imperial propaganda, to view the Emperor as having forced Japan to surrender. One view is that he supported surrender to save Japan purely to preserve the imperial line, which was the motivating factor in all his actions. Bear in mind that preservation of the Emperor’s position and giving him immunity from war crimes prosecution was the sticking point in negotiating terms of surrender. Once the Allies said the Emperor could remain as ceremonial head of state, the Emperor gave instructions for Japan to surrender. He was out to save himself. He saved Japan only because he needed it, otherwise there’d be nothing for him to be head of.

He wasn’t an absolute ruler. Rather, he put his stamp on things others wanted to do, and to ensure the survival of the imperial line he avoided confrontation on serious issues with those who really ran the country.

If the Emperor had used whatever influence he had to prevent Japan’s aggression, there’d be millions of people alive in Asia who were truly slaughtered and worked and starved and tortured to death in the most brutal way by the Japanese for twelve incresingly appalling years of Japanese aggression and occupation. The fact is, the Emperor was an enthusiastic supporter of Japan’s actions when things were going well. He only changed his mind when his own position was threatened. Not someone with any character qualities I feel like thanking for anything.

The Japanese aren’t in any position to complain about being badly treated.

They got off bloody lightly.

If the Allies had run the occupation of Japan the way the Japanese occupied countries, then the Japanese would really have something to complain about.

There is simply no moral comparison between what was perceived as a necessary step to end the war with the A bombs and the widespread Japanese brutality and slaughter, from Nanking to Harbin and every form of monstrous sadism and inhumanity in between.

#14

Why not? Just the way some persons try to justify the mass murder of civilians through A-bombings of Japanese cities, Japaneses may say that their slaughters, from Nanking to Harbin, was to prevent massive insurgency in China and other places and so avoid much more victims

#15

They didn’t say that, so it’s irrelevant.

They couldn’t say that, because they were the aggressor with no legal or moral justification for being there. Any such argument is transparently ridiculous.

How on earth could slaughtering people to no purpose other than giving vent to race hatred do anything to stop there being more victims? If the Japanese wanted to reduce the number of victims, all they had to was stop killing people. They didn’t. They loved it.

More importantly, the Japanese never killed anyone in the interests of peace. They never sought peace, only conquest.

With one exception. They wanted peace after the A bombs were dropped.

It’s a pity Doolittle couldn’t drop sixteen of them three years earlier.

#16

Of course post-war Japanese governments haven’t raised this issue on the official level but the public opinion in a country often differs from the official one

And what was legal or moral justification for the US and British precence in that region? They were the same aggressors who had conquered vast colonies there using the same or even more cruel methods for much longer periods of time. For instance the US killed over half a million of civilian Philippines during the Philippine-American War.
U.S. attacks into the countryside included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones” (concentration camps).

More importantly, the Japanese never killed anyone in the interests of peace. They never sought peace, only conquest.

Evidently, the Japanese were inspired by conquets and the killings in the interests of peace that had been conducted by Brits and Americans across the region.

With one exception. They wanted peace after the A bombs were dropped.

They wanted to kill more Japaneses and weaken Japan before the planned invasion.
No one could know whether Japan would surrender after A-bombings or not.

It’s a pity Doolittle couldn’t drop sixteen of them three years earlier

How nice. Nuclear genocide in the name of peace.

#17

Not in Japan. The government’s spent the last sixty odd years trying, with great domestic success, to present a version of history that doesn’t even have Nanking, Harbin etc in it. Japan’s presented almost as the poor victim of America deciding to wreak nuclear havoc on it for no particular reason.

And what was legal or moral justification for the US and British precence in that region?

About the same as Japan colonising Korea and Formosa.

They were the same aggressors who had conquered vast colonies there using the same or even more cruel methods for much longer periods of time.

That’s highly debatable, particularly in relation to the British presence in Malaya.

It’s also quite irrelevant to the issue of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

They wanted to kill more Japaneses and weaken Japan before the planned invasion.

Softening up an enemy before an attack is standard practice.

The A bomb raids were not, however, a direct part of that process as the invasion was not due until November 1945.

On target selection,

Some of the important considerations were:

The range of the aircraft which would carry the bomb.
The desirability of visual bombing in order to insure the most effective use of the bomb.
Probable weather conditions in the target areas.
Importance of having one primary and two secondary targets for each mission, so that if weather conditions prohibited bombing the target there would be at least two alternates.
Selection of targets to produce the greatest military effect on the Japanese people and thereby most effectively shorten the war.
The morale effect upon the enemy.

These led in turn to the following:

Since the atomic bomb was expected to produce its greatest amount of damage by primary blast effect, and next greatest by fires, the targets should contain a large percentage of closely-built frame buildings and other construction that would be most susceptible to damage by blast and fire.
The maximum blast effect of the bomb was calculated to extend over an area of approximately 1 mile in radius; therefore the selected targets should contain a densely built-up area of at least this size.
The selected targets should have a high military strategic value.
The first target should be relatively untouched by previous bombing, in order that the effect of a single atomic bomb could be determined.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp5.shtml

No one could know whether Japan would surrender after A-bombings or not.

There was only one way to find out.

It worked.

Nothing before it had.

How nice. Nuclear genocide in the name of peace.

It wasn’t genocide or anything remotely like it.

What does it matter whether it was nuclear or not? It’s just another way of being killed by military munitions. Would you rather have been in Tokyo or Hiroshima when they were bombed and you were in the middle of it? It’s a lousy choice.

If there’s another way of ending a full scale war then bludgeoning an enemy who won’t surrender until he decides to surrender, nobody’s found it yet.

It’s all very well viewing the nuclear attacks from the modern perspective, but the decision was made after six years of previously unimaginable atrocities, death, mayhem, and destruction around the world on an incredible scale, by men who had become used to seeing large numbers of people wiped out in pursuit of the military and national objectives of all participants. Their experience of life and war wasn’t ours.

If the Japanese had had the A bomb in 1941, do you think they wouldn’t have used it on Pearl Harbor or even Los Angeles to encourage America to let them expand in the Pacific and Asia without American interference? Of course they would.

Japan is just too self-centred to consider anything but the suffering it endured rather than the far greater suffering it inflicted.

Tibbets had nothing to apologise for, nor does the US for nuking Japan.

None of it would have happened if Japan hadn’t decided to go to war to get what it wanted. Japan complaining about being nuked is like a mugger who uses a knife to rob someone who shoots the mugger saying it’s unfair.

#18

I believe the Americans were ready to drop much more bombs than just two.

What does it matter whether it was nuclear or not? It’s just another way of being killed by military munitions. Would you rather have been in Tokyo or Hiroshima when they were bombed and you were in the middle of it? It’s a lousy choice.

A-bombing did not leave any chances for survival unlike traditional warfare. Using A-bombing against civilians was an act of American cowardice. American “heroes” wanted to save their bacons from open combat at the expense of Japanese women and children.

It’s all very well viewing the nuclear attacks from the modern perspective, but the decision was made after six years of previously unimaginable atrocities, death, mayhem, and destruction around the world on an incredible scale, by men who had become used to seeing large numbers of people wiped out in pursuit of the military and national objectives of all participants. Their experience of life and war wasn’t ours.

If the Japanese had had the A bomb in 1941, do you think they wouldn’t have used it on Pearl Harbor or even Los Angeles to encourage America to let them expand in the Pacific and Asia without American interference? Of course they would.

Quite correct. Americans weren’t more humane than Japaneses.

Tibbets had nothing to apologise for, nor does the US for nuking Japan.

Neither does Japan, especially after A-bombing.

None of it would have happened if Japan hadn’t decided to go to war to get what it wanted. Japan complaining about being nuked is like a mugger who uses a knife to rob someone who shoots the mugger saying it’s unfair.

The Japanese just state the fact that Americans deliberately killed hundreds of thousands civilians and it was a war crime on behalf of America from every point of view.

#19

A-bombing did not leave any chances for survival unlike traditional warfare. Using A-bombing against civilians was an act of American cowardice. American “heroes” wanted to save their bacons from open combat at the expense of Japanese women and children.

Sorry mate, but it was war and war isnt fair or chivalrous in the main. I would rather see 20 milion of my enemy dead in a war if it saves just one of my men.

The Japanese would have lost the war without A Bombs. You seem to think that to have the killing and sufferring and Japanese civilians starving in their masses would have been a better option. For what, some foolish Emperor worshiping idiots that didnt want to loose face at the expense of their whole population? Anyone who doesnt see the facts is a tad niaive in my eyes.

#20

Emperor worshiping idiots made up nearly all the Japanese nation. Mass starvation would have been possible if Americans had won the war and worked hard to organise it artificially.