Paul Tibbets, RIP

[fishpoopoo]

This man saved countless lives. RIP.

Paul Tibbets, Pilot Who Bombed Hiroshima, Dies at 92 (Update1)

By David Henry

Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Paul Tibbets, the U.S. pilot who opened the age of nuclear warfare by dropping the atom bomb ``Little Boy'' on Hiroshima in World War II, has died. He was 92.

He died earlier today at his home in Columbus, Ohio. Tibbets suffered small strokes and heart failure in recent years and had been in hospice care, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

The Air Corps colonel in the cockpit of ``Enola Gay'' -- named after his mother -- led the mission on Aug. 6, 1945, killing at least 70,000 people instantly and demolishing almost two-thirds of the Japanese city. The uranium-laden device was the culmination of more than $2 billion of research in the race to beat Nazi Germany to develop atomic weapons. Japan surrendered a day after a plutonium bomb destroyed Nagasaki on Aug. 9.

``What he had done changed the world in ways so profound that philosophers and theologians will be discussing and debating it as long as mankind exists,'' author and journalist Bob Greene said in ``Duty,'' a book published in 2000 about Tibbets and the World War II generation.

The four aircrew members, who included bombardier Tom Ferebee, navigator Theodore ``Dutch'' van Kirk and flight engineer Wyatt Duzenbury, became part of the top-secret Manhattan Project, the team led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to develop the atom bomb. Only Tibbets, 29 at the time, was informed of the bomb type before the mission.

Under the codename ``Silverplate,'' referring to the modification of the B-29 Superfortress aircraft chosen to carry the 10,000-pound (4,536-kilogram) weapon, the plane took off from the Pacific island of Tinian, near Guam, and unloaded its deadly cargo at 8:15 a.m. local time.

Oppenheimer's Advice

At the advice of Oppenheimer, Tibbets was required to steer the plane at an angle of 159 degrees in either direction as fast as possible after bomb release to have the best chance of survival and avoid the shockwaves from the explosion 10 miles away. After observing the destruction and taking photographs for several minutes, they escaped to safety over the Sea of Japan.

Tibbets told the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper in 2002 that a third nuclear device had been ordered by Curtis LeMay, chief of staff of the strategic air forces in the Pacific, after the Nagasaki bombing, though it was never used. Tibbets also revealed the unit's initial plan to drop an atom bomb in Europe.

``My edict was as clear as could be,'' he said in the interview. ``Drop simultaneously in Europe and the Pacific because of the secrecy problem. You couldn't drop it in one part of the world without dropping it in the other.''

Tibbets expressed no regret for his role in the bombing of Hiroshima and said it saved thousands of American lives by averting the need for a ground-based invasion of Japan to end the war.

Early Years

Paul Warfield Tibbets was born on Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Illinois. His father moved the family in the mid-1920s to Miami, where he worked in the real-estate industry. Tibbets had his first ride in an airplane at age 12, when he accompanied a pilot during a promotion flight to throw Baby Ruth candy bars to the crowd below at the Hialeah race horse track near Miami.

He attended Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, as a teenager before studying medicine at universities in Florida and Cincinnati, mostly to satisfy his father's wishes. Tibbets then chose aviation as a career by becoming a cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, in 1937.

During World War II, he commanded the 340th Bomb Squadron and flew 25 missions in B-17 aircraft over Europe and later served in air raids on North Africa.

In 1943, Tibbets returned to the U.S. to test-fly Boeing Co.'s Superfortress B-29 airplane, the most sophisticated and expensive bomber of its time. He then arranged for the modification of some B-29s to hold a nuclear weapon by removing the turrets and armor plating and reconfiguring the bomb bay.

Postwar Career

After the war, Tibbets was a technical adviser on nuclear weapons tests at Bikini Atoll and oversaw the purchase of the B- 47 six-engine bomber for the Air Force. He also set up the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. Tibbets rose to the rank of brigadier general and served almost 30 years in the U.S. Air Force before retiring in 1966. He moved to Geneva to operate Lear jets in Europe and consulted for government ministries in the region.

He joined Executive Jet Aviation in Columbus, Ohio, in 1970, becoming chairman in 1982.

``Enola Gay'' was fully restored and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea, and three sons -- Paul III, of North Carolina; Gene, of Alabama; and James, of Columbus. He requested that there be no funeral to avoid attracting protesters, according to the Associated Press.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Henry in Frankfurt at dhenry2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 1, 2007 11:44 EDT