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Hiroshima Bomb Pilot Paul Tibbets Dies at 92

Paul Tibbets, the man who commanded the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, has died at age 92. Tibbets believed until the end that the bombing, which killed over 100 thousand Japanese people (most of them civilians), was justified:

In a 1975 interview he said: “I’m proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did… I sleep clearly every night.”

In 1976, Gen Tibbets was criticised for re-enacting the bombing at an air show in Texas.

A mushroom cloud was set off as he over flew in a B-29 Superfortress in a stunt that outraged Japan. Gen Tibbets said it was not meant as an insult but the US government formally apologised.

In 1995, Gen Tibbets denounced as a “damn big insult” a planned 50th anniversary exhibition of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution that put the bombing in context of the suffering it caused.

He and veterans groups said too much attention was being paid to Japan’s suffering and not enough to its military brutality.

Here is an interview conducted with Tibbets last year, in which he questions the loyalty of Americans who speak out against the bombing:

Tibbets had requested that he be buried without a headstone or funeral ceremony, since he feared that opponents of the bombing would use them for protests.

{democracy:41}

25 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - November 2, 2007 at 8:03 am

Categories: General Japan Tags: enola gay, hiroshima, history, japan, paul tibbets, war crimes

erika88

I’m just waiting for the comments to spring up about how the war wouldn’t have ended without Hiroshima, etc. It’s probably useless to argue about things in the past, but it scares me to think that it might happen again. With current events being the way they are now, I wouldn’t be surprised if it does.

Chris

So I guess that means you’ve won the argument right?

The only reason Japan is pissed about the bombings is because they lost and it happened to them. If it was the other way around the Japanese pilots who flew the missions to bomb America would be hailed as national heroes for all eternity.

America was right in doing it. Twice! Don’t confuse the soft post-WWII Japan of today with the demon known as pre-WWII Japan.

The Overthinker

Hibbets should definitely not be seen as a war hero as he did nothing heroic. He merely piloted a B-29 from Guam to Hiroshima and back. It’s not even as if he had to fight through heavy opposition: by this stage the B-29s were virtually unopposed, as Japan was saving what remained of its air fleet for the final battles on the mainland.

It is indeed futile to argue about the military impact of the two bombings vs say the Soviet Invasion, although given Japan’s hatred of communism at the time you could say that they would have surrendered to the US just to prevent the USSR from occupying half their land. However the A-Bombs *did* allow Japan to take the moral high ground and claim that their surrender was for the good of humanity, to prevent these weapons being used again. It wasn’t the best face-saving measure, but better than nothing. Also, the images that were released to the world afterwards played a massive part in keeping public opinion firmly opposed to their use, and so you could definitely argue that the use of two small ones in Japan potentially prevented the use of many large ones later.
section9

Look, a couple of things, if it wasn’t for Paul Tibbets and the 509th Composite Group, my Grandfather would have rotated out with the rest of U.S. First Army to the Pacific Coast for the assembly areas for Operation CORONET, U.S. First and Eigth Armies joint invasion of Honshu.

Because of the superb defensive scheme of General Anami’s staff, KETSU-GO had a wonderful chance of forestalling Operation OLYMPIC. That original invasion, which had been shelved by August 6th due to the relentless buildup of Japanese troops, forced the Americans to go straight to the CORONET plan and consider landing at Sendai.

Without Paul Tibbets’ actions, it would have been worse. “Little Boy” was a one-of-a-kind” test platform. The actual production model was the Mark III Fat Man used at Nagasaki. Had Japan not surrendered, those units would have been used as tactical nuclear devices in the battlefield against Japanese formations.

I am probably alive today because of that dumb s.o.b. pictured above. And so are many Japanese.

The Overthinker

If it hadn’t been Tibbets it would have been someone else. Credit – and blame – must go elsewhere.

Coronet was due to land a little closer to Tokyo than Sendai, I believe. Choshi, along that wide smooth coast ready to strike directly at Tokyo, is the landing site I most commonly read about. I haven’t read anything about Olympic actually being shelved – do you have any sources for that? Also, what exactly was the consensus regarding Ketsu-Go and its capacity to block an invasion? I know they thought, based on Iojima and Okinawa, that it would be bloody, but what were their assessments of its strategic use? Frank mentions a concern about a 1:1 fight, and says there were concerns over Olympic’s viability to produce results without too many casualties, but does not, if I remember, mention it was actually shelved.

The “I am alive now because of…” argument doesn’t really mean much though. Some people are alive, some are dead, through almost any action. That’s a moral argument, and a ‘what-if’ argument. Come to think of it, if the idea that it was the USSR joining in that really stopped the war is correct, you could well owe your life to the Soviet Union….

Samantha

GOOD RIDDANCE! And people like Chris who rejoice upon the death of innocent children should be tortured and stabbed to death. If feel bad for the people who live around those low life scums.

Karisu

You grossly overstate Chris’s sentiment by saying he rejoices death. And then you go and wish death upon him and others like him. You then continue your drama by calling him scum (and apparently anyone else with a differing opinion than yours it seems).

I see your quite the stand up person yourself.

Chris

Thanks Karisu.

dawnrazor

the issue of Paul Tibbets and the atomic bombing are seaprate ones.
Hes not a war hero any more than thousands of men who flew bombing raids during the war are heroes. In fact as was said before his achievement was less as he flew unopposed over clear skies. I dont hail or villify the guy. he was a soldier doing his job. the issue of whether the bombs should have been dropped at all is one to lay at the feet of people much higher up the chain of command.

I always wander why the decision to use atomic weapons is often held up as one of the most vicious and disgusting acts in world history but the decision to fire bomb wooden cities (which left over 100,000 dead in one raid on tokyo alone) is rarely given the same attention.

If its ok to burn and maim with conventional weapons whats the difference by doing the same thing with a different type of bomb?
Kansai-boy

dawnrazor is right.

Also, ask yourself this: If Japan had the capability to use atomic weapons during the war, do you think they would have hesitated to drop them on American soil? I doubt it. People are people, and all nations have the potential to commit atrocities.

The Overthinker

Japan would have had a pretty hard time getting any a-bombs to the US by the time they had developed any. If they had any, more likely targets would be in China.
Buster

Yup, would be nice if americans could therefore bury the myth of “the good war”.

Basic Logic

I think those that survived the concentration camps and their descendants consider it a good war

tim

there are no heroes in war

M.C. Escher

If you’ve watched enough bad television to repeat that line, you must have seen plenty of war heroes

Enola

Too bad America did not also select Taiji as a target, that would have given the dolpins a place to stop during their migration.

Was the use of the atomic bomb justified, ask the families of the 30 million Chinese, Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese civilians murdered by the great country of Japan from 1937-1945. And people think the Nazi’s were bad.

ponta

“Too bad America did not also select Taiji as a target, that would have given the dolphins a place to stop during their migration.”

So do you want to see more civilians dead to save dolphin?

“Was the use of the atomic bomb justified, ask the families of the 30 million Chinese, Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese civilians murdered by the great country of Japan from 1937-1945″
It seems the argument is very confused.
I think many of them suffered under the former colonizers, Japan, and new dictators, and they would have been happy they were expelled and they are justified in feeling so. But that has little to do with the justification for use of the atomic bomb and the killing of civilians; you need more argument to make your claim more convincing.
The Overthinker

What are the sources for these figures? The figures given in the Wikipedia article on World War II casualties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties) for civilian deaths suggest “only” around 20,000,000, with China being 16 million, Indonesia being 4 million, and the other countries mentioned adding another couple of hundred thousand. Also, the figure for China, as broken down by Professor RJ Rummel, notes that “Civilian dead: killed in fighting 3,308,000. Victims of repression and atrocities: Japanese war crimes 3,549,000 (not including an additional 400,000 POWs); Repression by Chinese Nationalists 5,907,000 (including 3,081,000 military conscripts and 2,250,00 famine deaths caused by Nationalist government); by Chinese Communists 250,000 and by Warlords 110,000. Additional deaths due to famine were 2,250,000″
So at least six to eight million of these deaths were due to internal Chinese factors.

The problem with WW2-in-Asia death tolls is that certain governments, such as China, like to exaggerate the figures – the Chinese figure for example is about 35,000,000 dead, which is almost double the Western estimate of 20,000,000 (including military).

However paying for “even” 15 to 20,000,000 civilian dead with the loss of as little as 3% (600,000) of that total doesn’t seem over the top. That is, IF you accept the legitimacy of the bombings (atomic and conventional) as “revenge” killings. That’s a very murky moral area.

Enola

Prehaps who could explain Japanese customs in the 40′s with regards to surrender and since Japan itself was under imminent invasion by the Allied forces.

Not that we will ever know, but I would assume as do many historians, had an invasion taken place, the death toll would have been enormously larger to both sides of the conflict as the Japanese would not have been fighting for chunk of land that they invaded, but their own homeland. Not to mention that Japan itself was literally a war entity with it’s sole purpose to maintain it’s war machine.

You say there is no justification for using the atomic bomb, so I assume you would have prefered the technique used against Germany in which everything was carpet bombed using “comventional” explosives. This method took far more lives in every theater of the war then the atomic bomb. (Not to mention all the wars that never started due to the use of the atomic bomb)

As for the dolphin, as with every culture that using the excuse of “tradition” to explain why they continue to do
things. Let’s face it, cannibalism was a tradition, but it does not continue, why would any country allow the killing of the world second most intelligent mammal in the name of “tradition” to continue.

The Overthinker

Everything WAS carpet-bombed in Japan, with very few exceptions (aside from the cities too far north for the B-29s to reach, the only major cities that were spared were Kyoto and Kanazawa – Kyoto by direct order of the US Secretary of War, Stimpson).

There is, to put it mildly, considerable controversy over the Allied death toll and casualty toll projects for the invasions, as no one knows for certain exactly who told who what and when, and after the war it was not uncommon for death toll projections to be raised up to justify the bombing. The most common assumption seems to be that Japan would fight as long and as hard as it did on Okinawa etc, which would have been a bloodbath. This scenario does not take into account the fact that Japan would soon have found itself fighting on two fronts: Kyushu, where it had moved the bulk of its troops in preparation for the invasion, and Hokkaido and the north, where the Soviets would have invaded from. Together with the very real threat of ending up divided like Germany and having the USSR control much of the country, the two-front war, plus serious lack of war materiel due to almost all shipping being cut off, and the lack of internal transport as the US was moving to precision-bombing railways and tunnels and bridges using the newly-refined radar system, Japan would not have held out long. The government maintained its legitimacy on the kokutai, the national polity, of the Emperor, and anything that threatened that had to be avoided. The US would be far more likely to allow the Emperor system to continue than the USSR, so I suspect as soon as the Soviets made serious inroads into Japan proper, against a relatively weak Japanese force (since most were fighting the Americans in Kyushu), Japan would have surrendered.

Of course since it’s not possible to replay the closing months of WW2, this is all speculation….

I personally think chimps are more intelligent than dolphins, and how does one measure this anyway? Besides, there are several species of dolphin to consider. Anyway, the idea that had Taiji been nuked it would now be safe for dolphins is pretty silly. It’s not like Nagasaki stopped being a major port, for example.
ponta

“I would assume as do many historians, had an invasion taken place, the death toll would have been enormously larger to both sides of the conflict as the Japanese would not have been fighting for chunk of land that they invaded, but their own homeland.”
Not many historians agree that with atomic bomb, the death toll of civilians were smaller.

“You say there is no justification for using the atomic bomb, ”
I didn’t say that, But I say justification for using the atomic bomb would be strictly limited;for, it inevitably involves mass murder of civilians. Isn’t that one reason why great powers feel hesitant to use it despite
of the fact that they have enormous amount of atomic bombs?

“As for the dolphin, as with every culture that using the excuse of “tradition” to explain why they continue to do”
This post is not about dolphin.
And your claim as I understand it was that American should have atomic -bombed Tajili to save dolphins, wasn’t it?

John P.

The good guys won in the end of that bloody mess fortunately. I doubt if the bombing happened the other way around any of us would be here typing this freely on our computers, safely sitting at home.
Beau Mccoy

All fair in love and war. Cant cry about it now. Dont start wars with nuclear countries if you dont want to get nuked.
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Hiroshima Bomb Pilot Paul Tibbets Dies at 92

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