Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. The pre-­‐dawn hours are not chilled on this August morning as one might expect before the sun's warming rays appear. Despite the early hour, there is much activity on the tarmac. Everyone has a job and knows what is expected of them. The schedule must be met. Activity on the tarmac is at an all-­‐time high, however there is only one plane being readied for take-­‐off. The rumbling of her engines overshadow all other sound in the vicinity. The silver B-­‐29 Superfortress patiently waits. She's a beautiful lady who, today, flies into history. Her name is Enola Gay. She's the namesake of the mother of the pilot, Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets. Today is her day to shine. It's August 6, 1945 and she has her own job to do. Her radio crackles as a voice breaks the silence, "Dimples Eight Two to North Tinian Tower. Ready for take-­‐off on Runway Able." She picks up speed, despite the weight of her payload, effortlessly reaching her take-­‐off speed of 155 MPH. Tibbets pulls back on the yoke and they all disappear into the night sky. Tibbets' watch reads 2:45AM. They won't touch back down for thirteen hours. In that time, a new era dawns.1 Figure 1 -­ Tibbets and Enola Gay We all know the events that transpire from this point on. In fact there are few topics which stir more controversy than the events of that day and reasons behind it. My inspiration for writing this isn't the lives lost, but the lives saved. More on that shortly. The Man Tibbets was born on February 23, 1915. His parents were Paul W. Tibbets, Sr. and Enola Gay Tibbets of Quincy, IL. When he was nine years old, his family moved to Miami, FL. One day, a barnstormer pilot by the name of Doug Davis took Paul for a ride in his Waco 9 airplane and toss Baby Ruth candy bars to the crowd at a local racetrack and Miami Beach. Tibbets always traced his love of aviation back to the events of that day. Paul was going to be a doctor. So asserted his father, at least. When, at last, the final confrontation occurred, Paul's father nearly disowned him. He was going to be an aviator, not a doctor. He joined the Army Air Corps, reporting to Randolph Field in 1937. He graduated first in his class, unsurprisingly. He earned his wings at Kelly Field in San Antonio, TX in 1938. On December 7, 1941, he was flying low over Georgia, listening to a local radio station when he first heard the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Early 1942 found, then, Captain Tibbets in command of a squadron of B-­‐18's headed for anti-­‐
submarine duties in the Atlantic. By the summer of 1942, he would transfer to flying B-­‐17 Flying Fortresses over Europe.2 The Job In the middle of 1944, Tibbets was given command of a squadron of new planes. These experimental giants were the B-­‐29's built by Boeing. Lt. Col Tibbets received a call on August 31, 1944 that would change his life. He was to be in Colorado Springs, CO at the office of General Uzal G. Ent at 0900 the next morning. It was made clear that he better pack his bags because he would not be returning to his unit. The September 1 meeting included a number of individuals whom Tibbets had never met and a couple that he knew well and had served under. This explained his presence in the room, it seemed. Eventually, he was introduced to Dr. Norman F. Ramsey and Navy Captain William Parson. Ramsey informed Tibbets of the decision that had been made to develop and drop a nuclear bomb and detailed the activities currently underway in Los Alamos, NM in accordance with the Manhattan Project. Ramsey explained that research had gotten to a point where they could no longer make sufficient progress without understanding the variables surrounding the delivery of the package, so to speak. That the package would be delivered was not a point of discussion. Tibbets' task was one of tactics. Tibbets recalled that he'd only been to Los Alamos on three occasions. Each time, he got to see J. Robert Oppenheimer working in his own environment. Tibbets noted that Oppenheimer was young, brilliant, a chain smoker and drank cocktails at all hours of the day and night. He also adds that Oppenheimer had an intense dislike of fat men. General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the entire Manhattan Project, was very rotund and dislike smokers and drinkers. Tibbets called them the original Odd Couple. They had to be professional and they had to get along.3 Figure 2 -­ J. Robert Oppenheimer Tibbets was to build a team and train them to test-­‐drop the payload and get the plane safely back home. The most difficult part was that of getting the plane to safe distance prior to detonation. Parson, associate director of the Los Alamos lab, was in charge of ballistics for the bomb itself. He brought up the discussion of how the plane might be affected by shock waves from the explosion and the previously unknown concept of radiation exposure. The plane would need to be at least eight miles away from the point of impact in order to survive. On December 17, 1944, formal orders were issued creating and activating the 509th Composite Group which would come to be known as Tibbet's Individual Air Force. It included engineering, maintenance, technical and military police units along with a medical unit specially trained in dealing with radiation-­‐related injuries. Orders Tibbets had seen 1lb of TNT detonated and called it quite impressive. He'd seen the after effects of 100lbs of TNT being detonated. He'd even dropped more than his fair share of 500lb bombs all across Europe. So, when the Manhattan Project scientists told him that the single bomb his plane would carry would be equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, he was taken aback. The size of a single bomb with that yield would have to be exceedingly large. It was his job to figure out the mechanics of securing, transporting and dropping the bomb. Add to that list the variables that come with flying a plane with that kind of payload then maintaining control once it leaves the plane. He and his team soon came to the conclusion that everything they knew about flying a fully armed and armored plane into a target zone was useless. In the end, they stripped all of the armor and gun turrets out of the plane to eliminate dead weight. They were able to make tighter turns, reach higher altitudes and maintain higher fuel efficiency. He also determined that the plane would need to make a 155 degree turn in order to make safe distance. With the increased altitude, the plane would be six miles in the air at drop-­‐time. Tibbets' 1200 person support team set sail for Tinian Island on May 6, 1945, just two days before V-­‐E day. It would take them 23 days to reach their destination. Tibbets would not be with them. Instead, he paid a visit to the Glenn L. Martin Company's plant in Omaha, NE where he handpicked his B-­‐29 as it came off of the assembly line. He then flew himself to Tinian Island accompanied by the other 17 B-­‐
29s in the group. Hello Little Boy Tinian is a small island in the Marianas. At the time, it was as close as bombers could get to the Japanese mainland. While Tibbets and his team were making their way to the island, the USS Indianapolis was making its way to Tinian carrying the components of the bomb. July 30, 1945, on its homeward leg, returning from Tinian where it safely delivered the secret cargo, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Of the 1,196 crew members, 900 or so survived the sinking but only 316 would be rescued after 4 and a half days adrift. The bomb, christened "Little Boy" was 10 feet long and 28 inches in diameter. It was bigger than any bomb Tibbets had ever seen, weighing in at 9,700lbs. It was decided that the bomb assembly would be completed in-­‐flight just in case the Enola Gay crashed on take-­‐off. They didn't want any accidental detonations. Figure 3 -­ Little Boy Essentially, the bomb contained a gun that fired a mass of Uranium 235 at another mass of Uranium 235 creating a supercritical mass. At impact, an initiator introduced a burst of neutrons to begin the chain reaction until energy release causes the bomb to tear itself apart. BOOM And, so we come full circle. August 6, 1945, three hours after take-­‐off, the Enola Gay flies over Iwo Jima, where 5,500 Americans and 25,000 Japanese had died in an exceedingly harsh battle. They climbed to 30,700 feet and headed for the Japanese mainland. At 8:30am, a coded message arrives stating simply, "Y-­‐3, Q-­‐3, B-­‐2, C-­‐1". This message was essentially a weather report for Hiroshima. Cloud cover was light and the target now confirmed. At 9:15am local time, the bomb fell. 43 seconds later, BOOM. The resulting mushroom cloud rose to 45,000 feet. The crew of the Enola Gay would have visual contact with the cloud for the first 90 minutes of their return trip to Tinian. Tibbets felt a tingling in his teeth that told him of the detonation. This was an effect cause by radiation interacting with fillings in his teeth. Three days later, a second bomb (one originally planned for simultaneous drop on Berlin) was dropped on Nagasaki. Fallout There is no doubt that the bomb is likely the single harshest event of World War II. The cost in lives of that one bomb is astounding. In Hiroshima, a city with a population of 255,000 at the time, 66,000 died and 69,000 were injured. In Nagasaki, the population of 195,000 is reduced by 39,000 dead and 25,000 injured. All in all, 199,000 people were killed or injured. There's no good way to present information such as that. But, this is a discussion of lives saved. Invasion The Japanese were expecting, and well prepared for, an invasion of the mainland. This included some 10,000 aircraft to be used as kamikaze planes. The Japanese Navy still maintained 6 aircraft carriers, 4 cruisers and 1 battleship along with hundreds of midget submarines (essentially manned torpedoes). There were 900,000 men, including three tank brigades defending Kyushu alone. Kyushu is the island at the southern tip of the Japanese mainland. Figure 4 -­ Japan Japanese civilians had been organized and armed into combat corps. All men ages 15-­‐60 and all women ages 17-­‐40 were expected to take up arms in defense of their country. Allied intelligence was wholly unaware of these preparations. Operation Olympic would begin with the taking of Kyushu. Operation Coronet would begin the invasion of the main island with forces landing near Tokyo. Allied planning took into account less than 1/3 of the total force being brought to bear by the Japanese people. The people of Japan were ordered to fight without surrender. Based on the fighting during battles such as Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and others, the casualties on both sides would be excessive. Every inch of ground would cost lives on both sides. Estimates based on numbers known during the planning set the expectation for the loss of 1,200,000 Allied soldiers followed by tens or hundreds of thousands more as the battle wore on. Estimates of Japanese casualties were largely unestimated, though it was certain that the result would be the near-­‐total eradication of the Japanese people. Modern estimates generally agree that the number of Japanese dead would have been between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000. As I said, this is a discussion of lives saved. Personal Impact Among the lives saved that day was that of my Grandfather. To his dying day on January 11, 2009, my Grandfather would staunchly declare that Paul Tibbets had saved his life and those of his crew mates. He said it with such conviction that no one would ever think otherwise. The greatest gift I ever gave him was the chance to meet Paul Tibbets, shake his hand while tearfully and fervently thanking him for what he did that day. While standing with Tibbets, I asked him if he had any reservations about the job he was given. He said, "Of course. But, I was a soldier. I had orders. If I hadn't done it, they'd have court martialed me and found someone else who would. " Tibbets could have selected a different flight crew for the first drop. But, he chose to do it himself. He was, in fact, a soldier with a job to do. He did it well. There were thousands of people behind the decision to research, develop and drop the bomb. Each one of them is just are responsible for the results of the job. Grand Dad might have understood that. But, it didn't change his view. He knew that, at 8:30am on August 6, 1945, a US Naval battle group including the USS Massey (DD-­‐778), the destroyer on which my grandfather served, was steaming less than 400 miles from Hiroshima on a mission to gather intelligence for the coming invasion. Figure 5 -­ USS Massey DD-­778 Talk onboard the Massey showed that they all expected to die in that fight, having participated in five of the battles in the Pacific to date. I miss him terribly, to be sure. One of my most intense memories is of him telling the story of the time between V-­‐E Day and V-­‐J Day. To him, those were the worst days of the entire war. He said it was like standing under a boulder, waiting for it to fall. He and his ship-­‐mates were completely certain it was going to fall soon. The only things that fell were the two bombs that took the fight out of the Japanese. Conclusion The debate around whether or not dropping the bomb was the right thing to do rages on. Revisionist historians would like to paint the Allies as monsters for what they did and the decisions they made. It was well-­‐known that the Japanese may have desired surrender, however, any surrender pre-­‐bomb would have been less than unconditional. At the time, Allied command considered this unacceptable. The invasion of Japan was to move forward. In the end, the dropping of the bomb saved a countless number of lives. It saved my Grandfather's life and, in doing so, saved mine. How many millions of people wouldn't be here today if all of those millions had died then? As much of a thrill as it was for me to get to meet the man who was Brigadier General Paul Tibbets (ret.), it was the honor of a lifetime for my Grandfather. Making that meeting a reality, even for the few minutes we all had together, will forever make me smile. It was the first time I ever saw him shed tears of pure joy. He said it was the best gift anyone had ever given him. I still have two autographed copies of Tibbets' book that I bought that night. It's about the events leading up to and including the dropping of the bomb. One is mine. The other was given to me in accordance with Grand Dad's wishes upon his passing. Guess which one is more valuable to me. "The day I dropped the bomb was the most boring flight I ever made," Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Web Sites Cited 1. Tibbets, Paul W. “Biography of Enola Gay Pilot”. AcePilots. 2009. <http://www.acepilots.com/usaaf_tibbets.html> 2. Freeze, Di. "Paul Tibbets: A Rendezvous With History ". Airport Journals. May 2003 < http://www.airportjournals.com/Display.cfm?varID=0305004> 3. Terkel, Studs. "One Hell of a Big Bang". The Guardian. August 2002. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/06/nuclear.japan> Graphics Cited 1. “Paul Tibbets and Enola Gay”. < http://b-­‐29s-­‐over-­‐korea.com/Last-­‐Raid-­‐On-­‐
Nakita/images/Paul-­‐Tibbets-­‐and-­‐Enola-­‐Gay.jpg> 2. Tibbets, Paul. "J. Robert Oppenheimer". <http://www.airportjournals.com/Photos/0305/X/0305004_3.jpg> 3. Unknown. "Little Boy on Tinian". <http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/twocities/hiroshima/images/SB50.jpg> 4. Worldtravels.com. "Japan Country Map". <http://www.wordtravels.com/images/map/Japan_map.jpg> 5. NavSource Naval History. "USS Massey DD-­778". 1945 <http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/0577803.jpg> I hereby grant permission for Dr. Roy deCarvalho to make use of this document as he sees fit, including, but not limited to, its posting in a public forum accessible to colleagues, students and any others with whom he might wish to share it.