Hiroshima Bomber Dead
Offtopic DiscussionDiscuss Hiroshima Bomber Dead in the Discussions forums; Sad, isn't it?
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the U.S. bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan on Aug. 6, 1945, died on Thursday ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the U.S. bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan on Aug. 6, 1945, died on Thursday at age 92, a newspaper reported.
Tibbets, who died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, had suffered strokes and was ill from heart failure, the Columbus Dispatch said in its online edition.
An experienced pilot who had flown some of the first bombing missions over Germany during World War Two, Tibbets was a 30-year-old colonel commanding the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress bomber named for his mother.
After a six-hour flight to Japan, Tibbets' crew dropped the bomb, code-named "Little Boy," over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m.
"If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified," Tibbets said later. "The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire."
The bomb instantly killed about 78,000 people. By the end of 1945, the number of dead had reached about 140,000 out of an estimated population of 350,000.
Three days later the United States dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing World War Two to an end.
Tibbets said in interviews he did not regret the decision to drop the bomb.
He became a brigadier general before leaving the military in 1966. Later he was president of Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus-based international air-taxi service, the newspaper said.
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i was bored last night and watched a truly awful movie....
but, a quote from this movie springs to mind....
"I heard thunder last night. Must have been Satan's stomach growling."
I agree with Billy - he is an American hero. He didn't decide to drop the bomb, it was an order. the use of nuclear weapons and its implications can be debated till the cows come home - but the man saved hundreds of thousands of both American and Japanese lives by ending the war.
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It still amazes me how cold-hearted those people were - Tibbets, Truman, the Nagasaki pilot. They sound like fucking robots.
Do you really think the guys in the air really had any idea what their payload was going to do to that city? Its not like they were part of the bomb testing crew. Truman, on the other hand, knew full well what the bomb was capable of; he made a decision, and it was one that ended a war. I won't fault him on that call.
Shadowborn To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
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all's fair in love and war, don't shoot the messenger...all sorts of cliches seem to be coming to mind.
my sort of cool story dealing with the war is that my paternal grandfather's ship was shipped out about an hour before pearl harbor was bombed. I really am amazed the things i'm finding out about my ancestory, family trees can be scary things.
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I was listening to NPR the day that he died, and his biographer gave an interview. His last wishes were to be cremated and his ashes spread over the north Atlantic.
he said, "I have had too much attention in my life, I don't want a headstone or burial plot - just spread my ashes in the place I was most at peace."
this guy took shit for doing his job - even 60 years after the event took place he was still receiving negative publicity for being the "trigger man". all he did was follow orders, he didn't volunteer to drop the bomb.
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It still amazes me how cold-hearted those people were - Tibbets, Truman, the Nagasaki pilot. They sound like fucking robots.
How were they cold-hearted??
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(the following post brought to you by Genki Sake & Laird's Vodka =P....a brief word from my sponsors, as it where...)
history is FULL of guys who "followed orders" and "did their job"
strange thing is, they seem to be cast in the role of "bad guy" in teh popular fiction....
the following where brought to you by men following orders:
the holocaust
the genocide of the native americans
the happy stuff what happened in Bosnia
the happy genocide in Africa
the bombing of Dresden
the bombing of hiroshima
same for Nagasaki
WW2 in general
WW1 as well
Pol Pot
Stalin
Hitler
ect, ect, ect...
(i could go on all night, but, well....yo get the point...)
but yeah...following orders, doing your job...this is a good thing.....
and the "Here's to you Mr. Hiroshima atomic bomb dropping guy" post made me LOL so much that the guy what teaches my R&R class had to come to my desk and read the thread =P
But If you were that person, in that time, and in that situation.
The pilot believed what he was doing was the right thing. No loss of honor for him.
nah...
the folks what got hung at Nuremberg made the same type of argument....
killing defenseless people is wrong, no matter what your "orders" are, no matter what "ism/ocracy" you follow....
and i say they had no "honor", as they didn't even have to look their victims in the face when they died...
as i said.....satan's stomach was so very growling when this guy died...
So, posed with the belief that your family, friends, relitives, neighbors will die because you won't do what might be the right thing, you wouldn't do it?
Remember this was WWII. Not some little neighborhood skirmish..
Ahh, how the young no longer realise the times as they were.. They just look at a blog and know...
Beware the ex's.. They ARE out to get you...
Nice guys finish last It isn't just a saying.. It's a fact of life!
Those things that produced your ex......you know, the bitchmakers! Metagion
If you have sex with a prostitute against her will, is it considered rape or shoplifting?
Hiroshima Bomber Dead -
11-04-07
