On the morning of August 6, 1945, the crew of the Enola Gay, a stripped-down B-29 Superfortress
and six other bombers left the island of Tinian. The planes headed towards Hiroshima, Japan
home to about 350,000 people. At 8.15 a.m., the Enola Gay dropped its payload, nicknamed
Little Boy, and 43 seconds later, Little Boy exploded over Hiroshima. An estimated 80,000
people died instantly, with thousands of more dying from their wounds and from radiation sickness
Three days later, another U.S. bomber, Boxcar, dropped a second atomic bomb dubbed Fat Man on Nagasaki
This Japanese city suffered a similar fate to Hiroshima. What we often forget is that real live human beings took part in the bombing, and they had emotions
Let's take a look at a few critical members of the flight crews to see what they thought of their actions
Overall, and to cut to the chase, none of the bomber crews expressed remorse for what they'd done
believing it was necessary to end the war. They certainly aren't wrong. The day after the bombing of Nagasaki Japan offered to surrender General Paul Tibbetts piloted the Enola Gay and named the B after his mother Just after the bombing Tibbetts put the Enola Gay on autopilots and took a nap
It wouldn't be the last time he slept peacefully with the full knowledge of what he'd done. In a 1989 interview, he said
The morality of dropping that bomb was not my business. I was instructed to perform a military mission to drop the bomb
and that was the thing I was going to do to the best of my ability. I can assure you I've never lost a night's sleep on the deal
The Enolages navigator, Captain Theodore Dutch Van Kirk, is the man who dropped the bomb
He also had no regrets about his role in the bombing. Van Kirk felt the bombings not only saved American soldiers from dying if a planned
invasion of Japan had gone forward, but also prevented many more potential Japanese casualties
which had been estimated at as many as 10 million. He told the Associated Press
I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run
There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese. Still, he said in a 2005 interview
pray no man will have to witness that sight again Such a terrible waste Such a loss of life Similarly the Enola Gay flight engineer Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duesenberry had no regrets about his participation in the bombing but told the Atlanta Journal in 1985
I don't think anyone can be glad when they take 100,000 lives. And Captain Robert Lewis, the Enola Gay's co-pilot, had a poignant reaction in his private journal
I wrote down later. My God, what have we done? At 11.02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, the B-29 Super Fortress Boxcar arrived over Nagasaki
a Japanese port city of around 263,000 inhabitants. The plane released Fat Man, a plutonium fusion bomb
At least 40,000 people died instantly. Major General Charles Sweeney, who piloted Boxcar on his first combat mission
believed that dropping an atomic bomb was also necessary, writing in his 2018 book War's End, an eyewitness account of America's last atomic mission
Sweeney co on the mission Lieutenant Colonel Fred O also felt the bombing was necessary but regretted the deaths it caused He told the Chicago Tribune I took no pleasure in killing civilians
Earlier, we said none of the bomber crews expressed remorse, but there were other crews
involved in the missions. Captain Claude Etherly piloted the straight flush. They were tasked with
determining if the weather was suitable for the Hiroshima bombing, but he didn't know the Enola
Gay had an atomic bomb. He later reached out to the victims of Hiroshima asking for forgiveness
later telling a veterans administration doctor, I feel I killed all those people in Hiroshima
After the war, Etherly spent time in several psychiatric wards and was arrested for a series
of crimes ranging from writing bad checks to postal break-ins. He was also involved in a 1947
plot to overthrow the Cuban government via a series of air raids. He eventually became a vocal
advocate for the anti-nuclear movement, writing, Someone will be impressive enough to give a message
that will influence the world toward a reconciliation and peace