Will This Man Burn In Hell Or...

an capall

an capall

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By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 1, 11:12 AM ET


COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, the pilot and commander of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, died Thursday. He was 92.

Tibbets died at his Columbus home, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. Tibbets suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said.

Tibbets' historic mission in the plane Enola Gay, named for his mother, marked the beginning of the end of World War II. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.

The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others.

Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.

"I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing," Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on Aug. 6, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the bomb. "We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible."

Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. It was, he said, his patriotic duty — the right thing to do.

"I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did," he said in a 1975 interview.

"You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal."

He added: "I sleep clearly every night."
 
An uncle of mine was a prisoner of war on Formosa (now Taiwan) for 3 years, working at a copper mine. When he was rescued, he weighed less than 7 stone, not much for a man 5'9" or so tall.

He was one of very few at that camp who survived. The great majority of prisoners died of disease and starvation. It must have been like a Belsen for Gentiles.

The dropping of the A-bomb saved his life.
 
Yes I agree someone had to do it to end the attrocities that captured soldiers went through.. You can't blame this guy for carrying out an order..................... :suspect:
 
I agree with Venusian. Like him I suspect, I'm of an age to have known many many people who fought in the war, and some who were captured, including my father-in-law who was barely alive when released from a Burmese POW camp. Most of his pals had died already - they were on the railway gang.

Another close friend of mine was in the Merchant Marine and had survived 3 sinkings on convoy duty. He'd served in the later stages on some of the Russian convoys - utter hell, and if yur ship wnet down, as most did, you stood no chance of survival. The Navy, both Royal and Merchant, were about to be deployed to SE Asia when the Atom Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. Mick had joined the Navy in 1939, and his luck was running out - most of his cohort was dead by then.

Milllions more of the Allies esp the Allied forces who were already exhausted, but also huge numbers of Asian civilians, would have died if Japan had not been brought to its knees.

War is horrific but we did not start that one.
In war, it is almost always necessary to choose the lesser of two evils.
 
War is horrific but we did not start that one.
Click to expand...

So HS - lets take one you did start for comparative purposes. Say The Boer war, which saw the world's first iteration of the camps the Japanese so evilly perfected.

If the Boers had a WMD and a pilot called Paul Van Der Tibbetz to use it to end the camps - what should he do?

I am not trying to offend - just trying to reconcile a moral maze.
 
I think that the "only obeying orders" excuse was ruled inadmissable, certainly on this plane.

In addition, no one has mentioned the raft of reasons why the bomb did not actually need to be dropped - indeed there is evidence to suggest that the real reason that it was dropped was actually to stop the USSR from invading northern Japan and increasing it's influence in Manchuria.

that said, I personally wouldn't hold it against the chap.
 
I watched the documentary on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The interviews with the airmen were enlightening. One, presumably the one who's just died, came across as entirely clear in his conscience that he did the right thing. Another struggled badly with his emotions.

For me, the bottom line is that it isn't our place to judge anyone; that's up to a higher authority. But I have every sympathy with a serviceman who may well have been told something along the lines of the future of the free world is in his hands and he must do this to save millions of lives.
 
My uncle, through marriage, lost a brother and a hand in a POW camp in Java, and, understandably, thought that dropping the bombs and the resultant end to the war was the right thing to do.

But that was, obviously, a very subjective viewpoint.

My knowledge of events isn't well enough informed to 'know' whether it was right or wrong, but there were a lot of 'innocent' victims and I don't think I would have slept well at night if I had either been the "bomb-dropper" or the decision makers.
 
Spot on Simmo, although for balance it probably needs pointing out the allies invited the Soviet Union in the Summer of 1945 to declare war on Japan. Mind you there were some very strange declarations of war in 1945, Peru on Germany is my favourite of the lesser known ones. It was only as the Soviet's started pushing into Manchuria, that the atomic bombs were dropped as you point out. I seem to think that Nagasaki was bombed on the same day as the Sovirt Union declared? Or was it few days afterwards? It subsequently transpired that the Soviet's had plans to invade Hokido, and the Americans were to come in through Kyushu, which would have made Honshu vulnerable to the fastest. Built on 4 principal islands, and 90% of its land mass mountains, Japan is a quite formidable fortress and has never been successfully invaded. Their appetite for the fight has been the subject of much argument over the years. One theory invokes the likes of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Guadalcanal etc where they were resiliant beyond the point of reason, where as another points to the fact that they were at breaking point and ready surrender with the divine right of the Emperor being the only thin preventing them from doing so. Tokyo had been well and truly flattened in the fire storm and more people were killed in this raid than either atomic bomb for instance.

Tibbets for his part never showed any remorse during his life (why should he?). I don't know how I might have felt retrospectively knowing that it was me with by finger on the release switch, but he'd clearly reconciled himself to his actions in all the years subsequently. The Japanese I'm never totally sure had been able to reconcile themselves to their history either, and the contribution they made to their own fate (unlike many of the European powers). I have had the fortune of visiting Hiroshima (in one of those ironic twists it was the same day that George Bush launched 'shock and awe'). I'd left my tele on all night with the sound low expecting something to happen and at about 3am Tokyo time I suddenly became aware of the room lighting up in flashes of light etc sure enough it had started. 7 hours later I was standing on the other side of the river from the A bomb dome in Hiroshima and wandering around the peace park (quite moving in a way).

It's a strange place. Japan has 1000's of public parks (they're a very big thing there) but this one has an altogether different atmosphere about it. No one really says that much, but every knows the historical significance of where you are etc There's a palpable sense of unblanched horror as well as sombre reflection about it. Mind you I couldn't help noticing that it was only the last few years they'd built a memorial to the Korean slave labourers who also perished in their war industries.

All of which mindless rambling has left me where? Not sure in truth
 
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