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There are two kinds of pilots: those who learn to fly by dint of hard work and determination and those few for whom the sky seems to be their natural element. It would prove to be a momentous decision. On the advice of his tactical officer, he chose observation. Unlike all the other men who had a choice of career paths, he did not opt for fighter training. With his mother’s blessing and his father’s condemnation, that is what Paul did. During the Depression era, there was only one avenue open for people of modest means to become pilots-enlist in the Aviation Cadet program. His father wanted him to become a doctor, but he wanted to fly. Certitude with attitude can be a bit much, and Paul Tibbets, by any measure, can be a bit much by half.įrom the day he graduated from Western Military Academy in North Alton, Illinois, to the present, there has never been an assignment at which he did not excel. He has never been able to abide adequacy, much less foolishness. From his earliest days he exuded a self-confidence that could be, and frequently was, insufferable. He is, and for all of his adult life has been, a most remarkable man. But it was the irascible and often abrasive General Tibbets who piloted the plane, and it is he who is credited with, or blamed for, history’s single most notable act of warfare. Within that hairsplitting context, the late Tom Ferebee actually dropped the weapon. Bomber pilots do not drop bombs, bombardiers do. He is the man who is credited with dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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is one of the most famous men of the 20th century. Perhaps even flirted with greatness.Īlthough not one American in 10,000 can place it, a good case can be made that, absent the name, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. He has the countenance and bearing of a man who has spent time on fields of high adventure and great achievement. Only his hearing betrays him: He is as close to stone deaf as one can get and still hear. His walk has slowed, but he remains erect and dignified. He does look like an old man, but not a 90-year-old man.
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His gaze, even with the heavied lids of age, is intense. “I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world - I'd like to see them all abolished,” Van Kirk said.Today, in his nineties, Paul Tibbets is still a handsome man. The plane’s navigator and last surviving member of the crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died last week at the age of 93.īefore his death, Van Kirk told the Associated Press that while the mission went perfectly, and that he believed the bombing which killed some 140,000 people actually saved lives in the long run, he felt slightly conflicted. Tibbets, a 30-year-old colonel at the time of the bombing, named the bomber after his mother. Inside the window-covered nose of the plane, you can see where pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee sat during Special Mission No. The plane was further modified to carry the atomic bomb - dubbed “Little Boy” - which was dropped from the front bomb bay onto the heart of Hiroshima during the mission.
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(Associated Press)At the time of its mission, the Enola Gay was among the most sophisticated, propeller-driven bombers in the sky during the Second World War, according to the Smithsonian. Paul Tibbets named the modified Boeing B-29 bomber used in Special Mission No.