"I'm saying this through a microphone, he recalled, "10, 9, 8, 7. He marked off two minutes, then one, 30 seconds, then 15. Ferebee, seated in the plane's nose, spotted the target area over which the bomb would be aimed, in the city's center. Fifty miles away, the crew had a clear view of the city. The B-29 passed over the island of Shikoku, approaching Hiroshima from the east. "This was my first mission over there, my only mission over there," he said. He had flown 58 missions in Europe and North Africa in 1942-43, but this sight was new. From more than 75 miles away, he spotted the coastline of Japan. As long as you can see me, fine.' "Īll three planes began a gentle ascent, eventually reaching about 31,000 feet in skies that Mr. Tibbets radioed their pilots to keep him in sight: "I said, 'No formation flying. 91, two other B-29's that would accompany them, joined the Enola Gay there.
![enola gay crew deaths enola gay crew deaths](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/2662fe6caeab33291d4dfabea5a0d1aec9689367/c=0-16-660-511/local/-/media/2020/08/17/BurlingtonIA/ghows-IA-200809848-b01de1cf.jpg)
Tibbets said.īy the time the Enola Gay reached Iwo Jima, the sun was coming up, a multihued daybreak that struck Mr. "My order to the crew was to stay off the intercom," Mr. van Kirk said.īut there was little talking aboard the plane. "I remember hollering up at Paul, couldn't we get a couple of more thousand feet, so we weren't so bumpy," Mr. Initially, they flew low, about a mile above the Pacific. Once aloft, he took the aircraft's bearings, using the northern tip of Saipan island and, later, the stars above, as reference points. van Kirk spread out his charts on a tiny table just behind the pilot's and co-pilot's seats. The crew had breakfast, then headed for the plane. A final, midnight briefing was closed with a chaplain's prayer. Tibbets passed the time playing blackjack with the plane's bombardier, Tom Ferebee. The crew was told to get some sleep.īut who could? Instead, Mr. At an afternoon briefing, the primary target was announced: Hiroshima. van Kirk, who was a captain, got orders for the mission the previous day, and as navigator spent hours drawing up a flight plan. "You just wanted to get in the airplane and get going," he said in a telephone interview from his home in northern California.
ENOLA GAY CREW DEATHS MOVIE
van Kirk, now 74, likened it to a Hollywood movie opening.
![enola gay crew deaths enola gay crew deaths](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ij7yREBYIFA/maxresdefault.jpg)
When the 10-man crew had come out to the tarmac that night, they found the area around the bomber thronged with officers and scientists, the darkness repeatedly broken by photographers' flashbulbs and klieg lights. Five and a half hours earlier, the B-29 departed from Tinian, a small Pacific island captured by American forces from the Japanese in June 1944.
![enola gay crew deaths enola gay crew deaths](https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/body_large/public/media-assets/SI-2005-6309.jpg)
The Enola Gay dropped the 8,900-pound bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy," over Hiroshima at 8:15 A.M. 2, when you're fighting a war to win, you use every means at your disposal to do it." Tibbets, 80, said in an interview in New York. 1, there is no morality in warfare - forget it," Mr. Tibbets said they experienced in World War II. Moral objections raised in the 50 years since do not fit the situation that Mr. Both men said they believed that dropping the bomb saved lives by hastening the war's end.