Paul Tibbets , the commander of the bomber Enola Gay, which in 1945 dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshoma has died at the age of 92.
02 November 2007
Paul Tibbets dies
Paul Tibbets , the commander of the bomber Enola Gay, which in 1945 dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshoma has died at the age of 92.
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12 comments:
Yes, I heard that he'd requested no funeral and headstone. Much as I disagree with nuclear weapons it is sad that there are people who would use a man's death and a family's sorrow for their own reasons. And I think he is right - that they would.
It must have been interesting to be in his mind.
It's a shame that people would protest at his funeral or attack teh grave. They would be no better than the Westboros
Agreed hames. Although he said he was never troubled I wonder whether his views on the bombing were different to what he said.
Wow! 92?!
He was fortunate to have a long life, that's for sure!
jams, to learn about Tibbets makes me take a moment and think about what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And how this pilot WAS innocent in the events.
I saw this too and while its sad that it had to come to a nuclear strike, it is well known that Japanese are fearsome fighters and would have never surrendered. The war would have continued with more lives lost.....
In reality Tibbets was simply the delivery system. I am not sure he would have even realised at the time quite how terible the weapon's power was.
If Okinawa was anything to go by hiting the Japanese mainland would have been extremely bloody. It is almost certain that tho Soviets would ahve invaded too, Japan would probably ahve been a divided country
R.I.P., General Tibbets. As strongly antiwar and antinuclear as I am, I do not hold him or his crew personally responsible; that decision was made far above his rank.
My father and I often debated the actual need to nuke Japan. Dad was on his way to the Pacific as gunnery officer on a troop transport ship when the war ended; he often said I'd never have been born if the Bomb had not been dropped. Others say Japan had all but surrendered already. Like most hypotheticals, this one is irrelevant today: this genie is out of the bottle, and we have to live with it from now on.
(I wrote a post on the YDD about this earlier today, if you can stand more of my ruminations.)
In the grand scheme of things he was just the delivery boy. We'll never know how the Japanese would have reacted to Coronet and Olympic. I suspect that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were metaphorically aimed at teh Soviets.
An excellent post and a fitting tribute to an American Hero. Its a shame, and a sad testament to our times that he had to opt for no public funeral. His actions, and the actions of his aircrew, though it was likely that many Army pilots and crew could have successfully completed the mission, were directly responsible to ending the war in the Pacific, and saved countless lives.
Another good post on him is to be found at:
http://toomuchliberty.blogspot.com
Whatever one thinks of te use of nuclear weapons, I can't understand why one would wish to deface a gravestone. It would not surprise me if some people would consider that.
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