Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets has died.

Let the flame wars over the Hiroshima bombing begin...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21578185/

...who would have died invading Japan.

I have no cause for complaint.

my father was on Guadalcanal, Tulagi and was gearing up for an invasion of the "Home Islands" when the war ended - RIP Sir :patriot:

Enola Gay, you should have stayed at home yesterday
Aha words can't describe the feeling and the way you lied

These games you play, they're gonna end in more than tears someday
Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way

I'm not going to comment on the nuclear attack other than to say that my dad was in training for the invasion of Japan at Fort Riley Kansas. He had just spent 3 or 4 years in the war in Europe. After the bomb attack on Japan they let him out of the Army because he had accumulated enough points. My mom went to visit him in Kansas and I was conceived there. Maybe I would never have been born if it wasn't for Paul Tibbets.

He had been training pilots in Arizona, he finally got orders to transfer to a bomber group header for Japan.

It would be very rewarding to imagine him getting his
eternal reward for his "good works". :nuke:

Tesha

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Like it was all his fault. Personally. Yes, he *should* burn in hell, you're so right. :eyes:

for the fat content of fast food.

Names like Stimson, Truman and Oppenheimer are more to the point.

The only difference is that many view the bombing of that city to be morally acceptable... If you don't view it as being acceptable then there is little difference, no?

BEFORE the bomb was dropped.

Concentration camp commanders didn't have that excuse

If he's guilty, then so is anyone who picked up a rifle after 1939. Frankly, after the way the Japanese treated Chinese and Filipino civilians and after what they did to soldiers who had surrendered at Corregidor, they were not in a position to complain about war crimes.

The were ready to invade Japan and the whole battalion were afraid they wouldn't make it.

And by the way, I met the guy once. I worked as secretary to the Manager at an MVA office. He came in one day to see the Manager, because of a problem with a vehicle registration. He sat and talked a while. He said he was scared to death after wards. He said the guys wanted to see what the bomb had done, and he, not knowing the consequences, banked and flew thru the smoke. He said that most of the guys had effects. Most had gotten cancer. His face was as red as a beet. He said it was some kind of blood disease.

In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.

He said the display "was not intended to insult anybody," but the Japanese were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology.

http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/1992377/

I first read about this stunt last year in the book Shockwave:Countdown to Hiroshima.I don't miss people that clueless.

At least that's the impression I got from watching that 'Black Rain' documentary on HBO.

We keep forgetting that there was a deadly race going on between the US, Germany, the Soviet Union, etc. to create this weapon.

The way the war was fought, with cities and civilians being bombed, few distinctions made between combatants and civilians, etc. World War 2 was the closest we ever got to "total war". Total war means total death. If that meant wiping out whole cities to force their governments to surrender, tough shit.

Whoever got the A-bomb first would have used it.

ANY COUNTRY WHO GOT THIS WEAPON WOULD HAVE USED IT.

I'll say it again: ANY ONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE USED IT.

Paul Tibbets was simply the command pilot chosen in this deadly lottery to carry out the mission.

:nuke:

Having said this, this is all the more reason to never EVER treat going to war as a trivial issue. Or to think that it will be a piece of cake. Or to use these kinds of weapons ever again.
"Surgical strike" my ass.

Once that Pandora's box is opened, God only knows what comes out - and the outcome is never the one that proponents think of.

:nuke:

No matter what anyone says, I know you did what you thought was right and just and necessary.

My God, what have we done?' - the commander of the 'Enola Gay'
By David McNeill in Hiroshima
Published: 05 August 2005

Sixty years ago tomorrow, the crew of the Enola Gay watched in awe as their payload detonated over the city of Hiroshima. "As the bomb exploded, we saw the entire city disappear," said Commander Robert Lewis. "I wrote in my log, 'My God, what have we done?'"

<snip>

In March this year, Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, also said the bomb had saved lives. Asked whether he had any regrets, he said: "Hell no, no second thoughts. If you give me the same circumstances, hell yeah, I'd do it again."

More:
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:1ljHgEXT2k0J:politicsinternational.web-log.nl/politicsinternational/war/index.html+%22the+crew+of+the+enola+gay%22+tibbets+guilty+regret&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us






'One hell of a big bang'

Today is Hiroshima Day, the anniversary of the first use of a bomb so powerful that it would come to threaten the existence of the human race. Only two such devices have ever been used, but now, a decade after the end of the cold war, the world faces new dangers of nuclear attack - from India, Pakistan, Iraq, al-Qaida, and even the US. Launching a special investigation into nuclear weapons, Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the Enola Gay on its mission to Japan, tells Studs Terkel why he has no regrets - and why he wouldn't hesitate to use it again.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,769634,00.html

I managed to get a good grade on my Advanced Placement U.S. History test.

The long-answer essay / document-based question on my test was about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Since I really have a terrible memory for names and dates, I absolutely needed to pull-off the essays as well as I could.

I must have absolutely shone with brilliance in my essay, to pick up all the points I'd lost in multiple choice, and get the equivalent of a solid B on the test.

My thesis was that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski was the first use of nuclear weapons as a tool to contain Soviet expansion.

The point I made was that Truman used the bomb not just to spare American lives in an invasion, but also to accept Japan's surrender before RUSSIAN troops got to Japan. Truman wanted to avoid having to split Japan with the Soviets the same way we split Germany and Berlin.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I was able to make the point well enough to bring me from a probable C to a solid B in a single essay.

and that we shouldn't take terrorists to court stand as testaments to his character all on their own.