Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, has passed away at age 92.
Rest in peace, good sir. While you sought to escape the scrutiny thrust upon you by your mission, countless thousands of American soldiers and sailors were saved by it.
(Thanks to alert reader Brad for bringing this to my attention)
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Infamy? What infamy? General Tibbets served his country with honor and in retirement lived a life of decency and some small fame. The only infamy attached to his role in ending World War II was that of his detractors.
Not the act itself, but how others have viewed it. Poor choice of words on my part.
Changed to "scrutiny", for those just turning in. I had originally written "infamy", meaning only that General Tibbets was hounded by those that opposed the use of nuclear weapons.
Thank-you General Tibbets, he lived north of here in the midst of real Blue Weenies.
I once talked to a guy who was on a troop ship carrying him from Italy to the Pacific, when news of the atomic bombings, and then the surrender of Japan, came.
The troops, having little else to do, had actually studied the information they had been given on the situation in the Pacific. The general conclusion was that they were all going to die near the shoreline of Japan. So the news made them so happy that they celebrated by running up on deck and throwing government property overboard.
One sergeant tried to stop them, yelling that he'd bring them all up on charges. He told one GI, "Put that back or you're headed for Leavenworth!"
The GI asked, "Is Leavenworth in the States?"
The sergeant said "Yes," and the GI tossed the item overboard.
The guy who told me the story figured that the captain of the ship had probably put the incident into the log as "accidentally lost overboard," because there was never any trouble.
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