doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Day they dropped the Big One

Apropos a post from DT/CC this Memorial Day past remembering all those who gave their lives and their futures to keep us free, now let us remember those who risked it all to deliver The Bomb 62 years ago today. If you're ever near Dulles International Airport in northern VA you owe yourself a trip to the Udvar-Hazy Museum where the Enola Gay now sits quietly posing for tourist cameras like she did the morning she left Tinian before dawn headed for Hiroshima. Then-Secretary of War Stimson's memo a few weeks before estimating the casualties and cost of a contemplated invasion of the Japanese home island, coupled with the emotionally-searing angst of those who developed the bomb as depicted in the PBS documentary, "The Day After Trinity", leave no doubt as to what the course of action must be. Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops owe their lives to Truman, Enola Gay aircraft commander Paul Tibbits, and Fred Bock, aircraft commander of Bock's Car, who delivered the second bomb on Nagasaki three days later, forcing Japan to surrender and obviating the need for an assault on the home islands. KBM

I have often thought it probable that an atomic war between the US and the Soviet Union may have been avoided by both parties having knowledge of the consequences due to the example set in Hiroshima.

Many lives were saved by that act. I hope our leaders today would have the courage and insight to do the same. Thank you Mr Truman.

I ended up sitting next to Paul Tibbets with a friend at breakfast at a militaria show a few years ago. We chatted back and forth during our meal and when breakfast was over he said "Would you two like to look at something with me?" We all walked out into the lobby and there was sitting a Norden bombsight. After General Tibbets looked it over for a few minutes he remarked to another person. "Yes. That's the right one." Apparentely the bombsight installed up to that time in the Enola Gay wasn't the right one and he could tell because the one used on the Hiroshima bombing had been specially modified to drop the Atomic bomb . This certainly was an interesting and kind of eerie experience for me and my friend!
Jim

Paul Tibbets is from the same city I live in, so I grew up with a lot of that history around. These were the most couregeous men, all of them in both theaters, we all owe them our freedom today. The Greatest Generation, no doubt!!!

Likey I'm alive because of that decision. Dad was on Okinawa. The fission bombs made it possible for him come home... in one piece, instead of visiting Kyushu in perhaps not the best of circumstances.

A fact from Mac's biography - durng the first two years of the American occupation of Japan, more Japanese were saved by the immunization programs instituted after the war than the total number of Japanese killed in the war, including at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

My Dad was a squadron navigator-bombardier stationed on Tinian with the 20th Air Force, flying B29's like the Enola Gay. Same island and base as (then) Col. Tibbets. Dad was there when the big one was dropped on Hiroshima, and later he flew the photo mission over Nagasaki the day after the second bomb was delivered by the B29 "Bock's Car". He saw the devastation first hand. Dad wasn't one to talk about his wartime experiences but when he did he was firm in his convictions of the resolve/fanaticism of the Japanese to fight to the last man, woman, child and last bullet, spear, knife and teeth. He was absolutely convinced of the necessity of both bombs and the great number of lives, both American and Japanese, they saved.

I agree - the Greatest Generation.... living through the depths of the Depression and ready to stand up when our country called!

One of my most cherished memories was when I asked BGen Tibbets to autograph a book for Dad and delivered same to him for Fathers Day about two years before he passed. I'll always remember the smile on his face. It was like taking him back 59 years! Silvers

Time has revealed two more atomic bomb projects. Germany was doing its best to develop one, but the Brits and we knew it. We delayed their heavy water project in Norway and elsewhere. They had moved enriched uranium to Normandy in preparation of dropping dirty bombs on London and later, New York. The Normandy invasion stopped this plan. They also had packed a super submarine with enriched uranium and jets to be sent to Japan. It was enroute when Germany surrendered and the sub surrendered and was delivered to Boston. Two Japanese officers aboard committed suicide when they discovered they would not make Japan.

The Japanese had two different atomic bomb projects. One by their Army and one by their Navy. The Navy project was destroyed during bombing in Tokyo. The Army project continued on in Korea and is suspected to have produced a small test explosion the day the Japanese surrendered. The Japanese also had super submarines which contained several bombers with which they planned to bomb the Panama Canal which plan was later changed to bomb San Francisco with dirty bombs.

We did not know how close each country was to attacking allies with dirty bombs. We were planning on a Naval invasion of Japan. The plan involved attacking the lower part of the Southernmost Japanese island. Plans of the day involved attacking with three times the number of protectors in order to be successful. We knew only just before the planned attack the the number would be more like 50-50 and the Japanese were heavily fortified in tunnels and caves. The estimated casualties was 1 million allies. We are still using the purple hearts struck for that last battle over 60 years later. We also had thousand of tons of chemical weapons which the Army was planning to use. The plan was being changed at the last to consider a different landing area (possibly North island) dur to the strength of Japanese in the South. The Japanese military was unconcerned with the starvation that would result in Japan. Their plan was to delay delay delay until the allies grew tired of the war and the Japanese could sue for a better peace.

The atomic bomb saved many millions of people.

Dad fought with the 23rd Marines across the Pacific. He was shot on Tinian, on Saipan, and left for dead on Iwo Jima at the foot of Mt. Suribachi. He is 94 and still with us.

For years my wife, our kids and I would take dad to his Marine Corps Company reunions. The first hand stories of the men that stormed and died on the beaches is quickly being lost. Truly a generation of great men and women.

How does one thank them - a hug, a thank you seems so inadequate, but, that is all they ask. We are so indebted.

Orry
5th Marines, Vietnam

I'll echo what Pete says above. The timing of who bombed who first turned out to be very critical. It could have been us as the victims of an atomic blast rather than Japan. God truly blessed America during those trying years, and I pray every day He will continue to do so.