Paul Tibbets was a brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and is known for piloting a plane to drop the first ever atomic bomb. Initially, he wanted to make a career in medicine, but the memories of a trip on a stunt pilot's plane never left him. He joined the U.S. Air Force and performed combat missions in Europe, being a direct participant in World War II. On August 6, 1945, he piloted a B-29 aircraft, which dropped a nuclear-loaded shell on the city of Hiroshima in Japan, killing tens of thousands of people, which forced the government to capitulate. This event ended the war.
early life
Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born February 23, 1915 in the city of Quincy, Illinois, in the family of Enola Gay (Haggard) and Paul Warfield Tibbets. The childhood of the future pilot passed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his father was a wholesaler of confectionery. In 1927, the family moved to Florida, and young Paul was sent along with a pilot who sold Baby Ruth chocolates and was fond of barnstorming (performing stunts on an airplane). After the flight, Tibbets was so impressed that he announced his desire to become a pilot. He later studied at the University of Florida in Gainesville and began taking flight lessons. In his second year, following the wishes of his parents, he moved to the University of Cincinnati to continue his studies in preparatory medical courses. His mother and father wanted him to become a doctor, but Paul himself was determined to devote himself to flying.
Military service
Confident that medicine was still not his path, Paul Tibbets was enlisted as a cadet pilot in the US Army Air Corps in Fort Thomas, Kentucky in 1937. In 1938, he became the second lieutenant and received a plane at Kelly's air base in Texas. In the same year, he secretly married everyone to Lucy Wingate, with whom he subsequently had two sons. After training at Fort Benning, Paul Tibbets was transferred to Hunter Field in Savannah, Georgia, where he happened to meet and make friends with George Patton, who was then a lieutenant colonel. In December 1941, while training on a new low-altitude A-20 bomber, he heard a commercial radio station launch an attack on Pearl Harbor.
While military operations were in full swing throughout the world, he was appointed commander of the 340th Bomber Squadron of the 97th Bomber Group, whose pilots controlled the B-17 Flying Fortress. During this time, he completed more than 25 combat missions over occupied Europe and led the first bombing missions in support of the North African invasion of Algeria.
Paul Tibbets returned to the United States in March 1943 to test the combat effectiveness of the new B-20 Super Fortress Boeing. In September of the following year, he was elected commander of the newly formed 509th compound group, whose top secret mission was to drop an atomic bomb. Commanding fifteen B-29s and 1800s military, Paul Tibbets and his team set off to train at the Wendover Army Airfield in Utah.
The same plane
In March 1945, the 509th moved abroad to Tinian Island in the Mariana Islands group. On the afternoon of August 5, 1945, Harry Truman, who was then the president of the United States, agreed to use the atomic bomb against Japan. At 02:45 a.m. on August 6, the Enola Gay plane, which the pilot named after his mother, and his team of twelve flew towards Hiroshima.
Bombardment
Exactly at 08:15 local time, the first atomic bomb exploded. The blast destroyed the city, killing nearly 80,000 people in a few seconds, and injuring nearly as much. The total number of victims after this bombardment ranged from 90 to 160 thousand. The course of history and the nature of war has changed forever. When the bomber and his crew landed in Tinian at 14:58, they were met by General Karl Spaatz and all the military personnel who were there at that time. The general awarded Paul Tibbets with a cross for flying merit, and other crew members with medals.
Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki in Japan, killing approximately 40,000 people. The Japanese actually surrendered six days later, official documents of surrender were signed on September 2, which put an end to World War II. Whether Paul Tibbets is considered a hero or a criminal depends on the point of view.
Event Display
The film “Higher and Farther” (1952) depicts the events of World War II and shows the participation of Paul Tibbets in which Robert Taylor starred as a pilot, and Eleanor Parker played the role of his first wife, Lucy. An interview with him can be seen in the 1982 film Atomic Cafe. He also gave an interview in the 1970s for the British documentary series Peace at War. The bomber pilot himself has repeatedly said that he has no regrets about his role in transporting or using the atomic bomb.
Life after military service
After the war, Paul Tibbets served on the Strategic Air Command, and in 1959 became a brigadier general, and in 1964 he became a military attaché in India, but this appointment was canceled two years after the Indian media called him "the greatest killer in the world." . He left the US Air Force on August 31, 1966. In 1976, he and his second wife Andrea moved to Columbus, where he was president of Executive Jet Aviation, an airline company, until he retired in 1985.
Paul Tibbets, the commander of the B-29 aircraft, which dropped the first atomic weapon used in the war, died in 2007, November 1, in his own house in Columbus, Ohio. He did not demand any funeral and tombstone, fearing that this would give his detractors the opportunity to express their feelings. His body was cremated, and the ashes scattered across the English Channel.