“We were fighting an enemy that had a reputation for never surrendering, never accepting defeat,” he said. Van Kirk joined his fellow crewmen in unwavering defense of the atomic raids. But over the years, the morality of atomic warfare and the need for the bombings has been questioned. The crews that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were seen by Americans as saviors for ending the war.
Van Kirk told it, by “more generals and admirals than I had ever seen in one place in my life.” Shortly before 3 p.m., the crewmen returned to Tinian and were greeted, as Mr. “Even though you were still up there in the air and no one else in the world knew what had happened, you just sort of had a sense that the war was over, or would be soon,” he told Bob Greene in Mr. You could see some fires burning on the edge of the city.” I describe it looking like a pot of black, boiling tar. He added: “The entire city was covered with smoke and dust and dirt. “Shortly after the second wave, we turned to where we could look out and see the cloud, where the city of Hiroshima had been.” Van Kirk told The New York Times on the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima raid. “The plane jumped and made a sound like sheet metal snapping,” Mr. Van Kirk likened to a photographer’s flashbulb engulfed the cabin. Major Ferebee released the bomb, known as Little Boy, and 43 seconds later, at 1,890 feet above ground zero, it exploded in a nuclear inferno, leaving tens of thousands dead or dying and turning Hiroshima into scorched devastation.Ĭolonel Tibbets executed a diving turn to avoid the blast effects, but the Enola Gay was buffeted by a pair of shock waves. His navigating skills had brought the Enola Gay to its target only a few seconds behind schedule at the conclusion of a six-and-a-half-hour flight. Captain Van Kirk, who had also familiarized himself with Hiroshima’s landmarks, leaned over Major Ferebee’s shoulder and confirmed he was correct. Ferebee, said, “I got it,” announcing that the Enola Gay was over his aiming point, the T-shaped Aioi Bridge.
Japan time, it reached Hiroshima, a city of 250,000 and the site of an important army headquarters. When the Enola Gay reached Iwo Jima as the sun rose, it began an ascent to 31,000 feet. From that spot, at the end of a long tunnel atop the bomb bays, he took the plane’s bearings, using a hand-held sextant to guide with the stars. and carrying a crew of 12, took off from Tinian in the Mariana Islands with a uranium bomb built under extraordinary secrecy in the vast Manhattan Project.Ĭaptain Van Kirk spread out his navigation charts on a small table behind Colonel Tibbets’s seat. Theodore (Dutch) Van Kirk, the navigator and last surviving crew member of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the last days of World War II, died on Monday at his home in Stone Mountain, Ga. I'm still in awe of the thousand plane raids on Germany and Japan.The last surviving member of the crew that piloted the Enola Gay on Augwhen it dropped the first atomic bomb used in war in history on Hiroshima, Japan, has died at the age of 93: Maybe we could get their attention by having a WW 2 size (small today) atomic blast somewhere in their desert? Tell them they're next, and we have lots of bigger ones? Just a single B-52 unloading conventional bombs is impressive. Both have no idea what we could unleash if we chose to. The jihads think they are hot stuff setting off an IED. The school kids here think one cruise missile is "cool". Part of the problem with all the small wars today, is that schools gloss over the World Wars, and hardly anyone is alive that experienced the big ones. Nice truck,nice Quad but I don't think that it will get too far.……………… Although there is internet rumor about his walking out because of a school teacher saying "World War Eleven", it is not (reliably) documented anywhere. Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk passed away Jat the age of 93. Isn't America just turning out just grand ? GOD help us and the future of our Great Nation. He was introduced as the one of the crew that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan during "World War Eleven" (WW II). Van Kirk, the navigator of the Enola Gay. Just received an e-mail telling of a guest speaker at a school.