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

A prized possession!

Had the opportunity to meet with and visit with General Tibbets was back in 1986 at Maxwell AFB. A fine gentleman and a great story teller!

He was particularly proud of his role in the daylight bombing raids from England into Germany and his role as Ike's "taxi" driver to Gibraltar for Operation Torch.

I urge you to try to find a copy of The Tibbets Story. It's very interesting to read Paul Tibbet's story in his own words. It may be hard to find. It was first published in 1978 in hard copy with a paperback edition in 1981, but it's worth the effort to find one.

A picture of my prized possession:



Roy

General Tibbet's current book, The Return of the Enola Gay, is available from his web site, http://www.enolagay.org, for $55 for a signed copy. Copies with additional signatures of crew members are available as well.

Maybe you boys haven't been brought up to speed yet, but you're supposed to feel guilty for the way the dirty Americans dropped those bombs on those poor Japanese. The Japanese were no different than us. No worse, and maybe even a little better seeings how they invented sushi and the Toyota. As soon as I get off this computer I'm going out to slap some old vet around a bit, right after I find some black guy to give some money to on account of what happened to his great-great-great-great-great granddaddy 250 years ago.

If you're lucky the Vet will knock you out with his cane before the black guy mugs you.

Gregsy I find it hard to believe that you think like that.

Don't forget the sailors on the USS Indianapolis who delivered the bomb for the Enola Gay. The 800 who went into the water after being struck by Japanese torpedoes and spent four days in the water before they were discovered. The hundreds who sank with the ship. The Captain who was court martialed and later commited suicide by putting a gun to his head.... only recently having his record expunged.

What a despicable, reprehensible comment.

IMHO, every Japanese citizen, every day, should bow his head, clap his hands twice, and give thanks to his ancestors in Heaven for the Atom Bomb.

Without the Bomb, millions more of his people would have died needlessly. Without the Bomb, Russia's last-minute 'August Storm' invasion would have locked all of Korea and half of the Home Islands behind the Iron Curtain. Without the Bomb, Hokkaido would have become an oriental East Germany. Without the Bomb, Japan's post-war recovery and today's prosperity might never have happened.

Once invented, the Atom Bomb was a cataclysm waiting to happen. Sooner or later, someone would have to use it. If not 1945, when? If not in Japan, where? If not by the US...by whom?

My father was a Marine and crossed the Pacific one island at a time. Out of the 20 plus Marines who enlisted with him only he and two others made it through the war. Had Truman not had the balls to drop the bomb I doubt very much any of them would have made it. Speaking as a long in the future gleam in his eye at the time it happened I a very happy they dropped the bomb.

What few seem to understand that the need for complete and total surrender changed Japan for the good. They were humbled, lost face and humiliated. It destroyed the military and made them not seek a second war like the Germans did after WWI. Make no mistake about it if the military had been allowed to surrender with honor they would have been back for a second go around by now.

The war was about economics to them not anything else. They were willing to concur what they needed and were fine if they had to enslave all of the far east to get what they needed. How many Chinese, Koreans, Vietmanese, and other Asians did they kill? A hundred times as many as they did Americans. This was a war of greed not freedom and thank God we won it. Because if we did not they might be a stronger nation but they freedom over a third of the would would have been lost for ever. Two bomb saved millions.

Orry,

No one has said it better, they.... and many like you, paid the ultimate price for us.

Hope you are both still within hug range by loved ones.

Thank You, and your family,
Mark

I just read the book "FLYBOYS". It details the capture and fate of several American aviators durign the final phase of the war. What most dont know is that the fire bombingsd of Japan killed far more than the A-Bomb. More people were burned to death in one fire bomb raid on one of the major cities than were killed at Hiroshima or Nagasaki!
But yes, the bomb did shorten the war. It is a great book and shows what went on.

As General Curtis Lemay said, "if we lost i would have been tried as a war criminal" in response to questions about his planning and executing the firebombing of Japanese civilian targets.

Too bad the Muslim fanatics dont read their jistory and too bad we dont either.