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How 12 'Enola Gay' Crew Members Remember Dropping the Atomic Bomb (mentalfloss.com) 130

Posted by EditorDavid from the 80-years-later dept.
Last week saw the 80th anniversary of a turning point in World War II: the day America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

"Twelve men were on that flight..." remembers the online magazine Mental Floss, adding "Almost all had something to say after the war." The group was segregated from the rest of the military and trained in secret. Even those in the group only knew as much as they needed to know in order to perform their duties. The group deployed to Tinian in 1945 with 15 B-29 bombers, flight crews, ground crews, and other personnel, a total of about 1770 men. The mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan (special mission 13) involved seven planes, but the one we remember was the Enola Gay.

Air Force captain Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk did not know the destructive force of the nuclear bomb before Hiroshima. He was 24 years old at that time, a veteran of 58 missions in North Africa. Paul Tibbets told him this mission would shorten or end the war, but Van Kirk had heard that line before. Hiroshima made him a believer. Van Kirk felt the bombing of Hiroshima was worth the price in that it ended the war before the invasion of Japan, which promised to be devastating to both sides. " 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."

In 2005, Van Kirk came as close as he ever got to regret. "I pray no man will have to witness that sight again. Such a terrible waste, such a loss of life..."
Many of the other crewmembers also felt the bomb ultimately saved lives.

The Washington Post has also published a new oral history of the flight after it took off from Tinian Island. The oral history was assembled for a new book published this week titled The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb.. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, lead pilot of the Enola Gay: We were only eight minutes off the ground when Capt. William S. "Deak" Parsons and Lt. Morris R. Jeppson lowered themselves into the bomb bay to insert a slug of uranium and the conventional explosive charge into the core of the strange-looking weapon. I wondered why we were calling it ''Little Boy." Little Boy was 28 inches in diameter and 12 feet long. Its weight was a little more than 9,000 pounds. With its coat of dull gunmetal paint, it was an ugly monster...

Lt. Morris R. Jeppson, crew member of the Enola Gay: Parsons was second-in-command of the military in the Manhattan Project. The Little Boy weapon was Parsons's design. He was greatly concerned that B-29s loaded with conventional bombs were crashing at the ends of runways on Tinian during takeoff and that such an event could cause the U-235 projectile in the gun of Little Boy to fly down the barrel and into the U-235 target. This could have caused a low-level nuclear explosion on Tinian...

Jeppson: On his own, Parsons decided that he would go on the Hiroshima mission and that he would load the gun after the Enola Gay was well away from Tinian.

Tibbets: That way, if we crashed, we would lose only the airplane and crew, himself included... Jeppson held the flashlight while Parsons struggled with the mechanism of the bomb, inserting the explosive charge that would send one block of uranium flying into the other to set off the instant chain reaction that would create the atomic explosion.
The navigator on one of the other six planes on the mission remember that watching the mushroom cloud, "There was almost complete silence on the flight deck. It was evident the city of Hiroshima was destroyed."

And the Enola Gay's copilot later remembered thinking: "My God, what have we done?"

How 12 'Enola Gay' Crew Members Remember Dropping the Atomic Bomb More | Reply

How 12 'Enola Gay' Crew Members Remember Dropping the Atomic Bomb

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  • Enola Gay (Score:1, Troll)

    by rossdee ( 243626 )

    Was too DEI for our current President, he wanted it written out of History

  • Enola G*y (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Logger ( 9214 )

    Fixed that to get past the DOGE filters.

  • First act of the cold war (Score:5, Informative)

    by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Monday August 11, 2025 @03:31AM (#65580696)

    The US had already flattened several Japanese cities with conventional and incendiary bombs. The Japanese command was hard-lined, caring more about their honour than of the lives of the Japanese people, asking of them to fight to the last man.
    Therefore they did not view Hiroshima and Nagasaki much different than other bombed cities.
    What really convinced them to surrender was that the USSR had invaded the largely undefended north, and with very rapid progress. The Japanese military leadership did not fear destruction as much as they feared subjugation under Soviet rule, and the obliteration of Japanese religion and culture. So, they chose between the lesser of two evils.
    But the decision was still not unanimous. There was an attempt from a faction to stop the Emperor from announcing the surrender.

    It is true that the US primary intention was that the bomb would have forced Japan to surrender. It was therefore easy to use that as the official narrative after the war.

    But the US also has a secondary intention: to show the world, and USSR in particular, the destructive power of the atomic bomb, to become the dominant power in the world.
    There were even talks among US commanders to A-bomb several Russian cities, to obliterate the USSR, and thereby communism's influence in the world.
    Those ideas were for some scientists in the Manhattan Projects the reason why they leaked bomb plans to the Soviet Union: to create a stalemate so that the bomb would never be used again.

    • And don't forget MacArthur's plan to quickly win the Korean War - which included dropping a few dozen nukes on North Korea...

      • And don't forget MacArthur's plan to quickly win the Korean War - which included dropping a few dozen nukes on North Korea...

        Since North Korea had the backing of the Soviet Union at the time, I doubt any win would have been “quick” had we done that.

        Russias nuclear program expanded rapidly after World War II. They were developing multi-stage nuclear systems by the 50s, so an attack on North Korea would have likely triggered the chain reaction a Cold War avoided for decades.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      That version is consistent with what I know about Japanese culture and the USSR's involvement. I'm far more inclined to believe it.

      Bombing civilians, even in western nations, has never been effective. In Britain, we don't talk about the Blitz Panic, if the Blitz is referred to at all, it is in the context of unifying the nation's resolve.

      Why, then, in a culture that put honour above all else, the emperor above all people, and the military over all mindsets, would bombing a city have any different effect? It

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      USA could have given them time to discuss the implications before dropping the second bomb.

      What really convinced them to surrender was that the USSR had invaded the largely undefended north

      Hard to say, as there were multiple factions forming, all having different views with no clear winner. The concept of nuclear weapons was still processing in their minds, not being sure what to make of it. Some thought it too difficult make many, but others say not enough was known about US's process to estimate quantiti

      • USA could have given them time to discuss the implications before dropping the second bomb.

        Just how long should Japan have been given to have this discussion? Remember that while Japan was given this time to discuss the terms of surrender they were killing Americans and those from other Allied nations, deaths that didn't need to happen if Japan only surrendered.

        I'm not certain of the details and timeline but it appears part of what caused delay was that Japanese leadership believed the Americans lacked the resources to produce and deliver another A-bomb before the Japanese could kill enough Alli

    • What really convinced them to surrender was that the USSR had invaded the largely undefended north, and with very rapid progress. The Japanese military leadership did not fear destruction as much as they feared subjugation under Soviet rule, and the obliteration of Japanese religion and culture. So, they chose between the lesser of two evils.

      That's complete horseshit. The Soviets had no navy that could take their soldiers to Japan, they posed no threat to the Japanese.
      Here's a 12 minute history lesson on how and why Japan surrendered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      The Emperor of Japan mentioned the atomic bombs specifically as a reason for surrender. Is the claim that this was a lie? That Japan didn't want to admit fearing the Soviets? Are there any documents to support this view of history?

      If the claim is that the "real" reason that Jap

    • Therefore they did not view Hiroshima and Nagasaki much different than other bombed cities. What really convinced them to surrender was that the USSR had invaded the largely undefended north, and with very rapid progress.

      Quite a coincidence then, that the Japanese surrendered four days after the 6 August Nagasaki bombing [britannica.com], if the bombings had little or nothing to do with their decision.

  • Slow news day (Score:4, Insightful)

    by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Monday August 11, 2025 @03:53AM (#65580730)

    None of this is remotely new, using it is pure clickbait.

  • Why the nukes were illegal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Monday August 11, 2025 @05:06AM (#65580840)

    This is from a friend who has studied the subject. I find his conclusions challenging

    'All countries are bound by the Hague conventions (according to the signatories, 'including the US, UK and France), regardless of whether their enemies or they themselves have signed them. This was stated explicitly, and justified by stating that they were the minimum standards for the conduct of war among "civilised peoples" and so anyone could and should be punished for failing to meet them.

    'The Geneva conventions, on the other hand, only apply in wars between countries that are signatories, or in civil wars within a signatory country, or in situations where one country is a signatory and their enemy states an intention to be bound by them (which has them treated as a signatory for the purpose of that war) or between two countries that both state such an intention.

    'The nuclear bombs, since they were known to be killing civilians going about civilian business, were contrary to both the Hauge and Geneva conventions.

    'Other agreements also exist such as limitations on the use of chemical weapons, the London treaty governing the conduct of war at sea (unless that has been overridden now, I'm not certain) and various other things. For the most part, they are generally considered only to apply to signatories and often only in wars against other signatories, however as we showed at Nuremburg, silly little details like whether there was actually a law against a thing at the time, whether a person was, in fact, bound by said law, whether they did the thing they are accused of and whether they are fit to stand trial are largely irrelevant to the administration of "justice" in international law.
    The decision to set off a nuclear bomb in a major city was a definite decision to kill civilians who were fulfilling their obligations as civilians under the Hague conventions. If international law had meant anything, the people who carried out the bombing and the people who ordered it would have been hanged for it. Whether it saved lives or not later is irrelevant, since the civilians weren't threatening those lives. As irrelevant as if you were to murder someone tomorrow and claim that if you didn't, then in twenty years they would end up spreading a contagious disease that would kill a hundred people.

    'In general, I do not accept the argument that I can do an immoral thing now based on my belief that it will prevent an immoral thing from happening later, especially when the supposed immoral thing in the future is
    1.yet to be decided
    2. not to be done by the victims of my immoral act

    'Regardless of whether you believe in the moral principle that you could kill those civilians for the purpose of preventing more deaths later, anyone who proclaims to believe in international law, uses it as a tool to kill off people he dislikes but claims that he isn't bound by it because his actions are pragmatic is a hypocrite as well as being all of the things he claims to hate. Likewise anyone who claims to believe in such a moral principle and then punishes others for applying equivalent moral principles is both a hypocrite and a moral vacuum.
    (I'm not making an equivalence here with the concentration camps, obviously, but many German officers were prosecuted after the war for technical violations of the Geneva and Hague conventions that were carried out for humanitarian reasons that are far more obviously sound than saying that murdering these 10,000 people saved 100,000 other people later)

    'Note that while an invasion of the Japanese mainland may well have resulted in more civilian deaths, the Emperor of Japan could have chosen to surrender anyway, preventing those deaths. Furthermore, the main reason a lot of Japanese civilians were dying at the time is because the US was already targeting them with a similar genocidal campaign as had been waged earlier against the German civilian population. Finally, expected civilian deaths during an actual invasion would likely have been from civilians actually acting as part of a sort of Japanese home guard, choosing to fight as soldiers. While you may argue that there is no distinction, I think that if they have chosen to fight, then there is a distinction between them and people who were killed simply for living in a major city.

    'Oh, and if you object to "genocidal" I would point out that bomber command had the stated aim of "dehousing" the German population. By bombing their houses. In the middle of the night. While they were sleeping there.'

    • will that excuses 'murkica as youare tha only nation to come from barbarism to bararism without ever passing through civilised.

    • The nuclear bombs, since they were known to be killing civilians going about civilian business, were contrary to both the Hauge and Geneva conventions.

      The critical mistake is right here. They were actually targeting military facilities, just with a weapon of such yield to overcome the lousy CEP (accuracy), that also guaranteed civilian casualties and damage. Which was allowed.

      • The nuclear bombs, since they were known to be killing civilians going about civilian business, were contrary to both the Hauge and Geneva conventions.

        The critical mistake is right here. They were actually targeting military facilities, just with a weapon of such yield to overcome the lousy CEP (accuracy), that also guaranteed civilian casualties and damage. Which was allowed.

        Also, it's questionable how many of the civilians were really civilians, given the Japanese "Ketsugo" plan, which organized all men 15-60 and all women 17-40 into combat units, trained millions of civilians, including children, to fight with bamboo spears, farm tools, explosives, molotov cocktails and other improvised weapons and had the slogan "100 million deaths with honor", meaning that they expected the entire population would fight to the death rather than surrender to invasion.

        Would that actually ha

    • I don't accept the argument, "known to be killing civilians going about civilian business," since that can describe any city that was bombed in WWII. What's the percentage of civilians at which you cannot bomb a city? The city had anti-aircraft guns, you can't claim that it was undefended. Is the manufacturing of military equipment "civilian business?"

      • Oh, come on.. It's not hard. Just show a modicum of empathy, flip it around, and imagine if it happens to us instead. Suppose the US and China go to war. It gets so bad that the US invokes wartime powers to force Boeing to convert it's Renton plant to bomber production. So, to break it down:

        1) If China bombs the Boeing plant in Renton, killing civillians who work there: Not a war crime. Once the factory converts to wartime production, the workers knew the risks, made the choice to take their chance t

        • That's not the standard. The standard presented was "known to be killing civilians going about civilian activities." Even civilians who work in military factories probably have civilian family members who go about civilian activities. There wasn't any exception given to how many civilians needed to work in the factory or how precise the targeting needed to be. It is reasonable to believe that no matter how precisely you target your weapons, there will be a certain percentage that malfunction and hit the wro

    • Hairsplitting and inauthentic pedantry. If we want to go that road:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      https://ihl-databases.icrc.org... [icrc.org]
      The only applicable provision there is that UNDEFENDED cities shouldn't be attacked; this was not the state of Japanese home cities which were aggressively defended as best they could. None were declared 'open' in the context of the Hague rules.

      Hague 1923 DRAFT version (https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/S0020860400071370a.pdf) proposed standards re ai

    • This is quite typical of purely logical, rational thinking that appeals to a certain kind of mind (I know because I used to look at the world this way and argue the same way when I was young). Unfortunately, it fails to take in so many relevant details. One can easily come to all kinds of conclusions when one argues from a rarified simplification or idealization of reality—the spherical cow [wikipedia.org].

    • "'The nuclear bombs, since they were known to be killing civilians going about civilian business, were contrary to both the Hauge and Geneva conventions."

      I don't know what the standard was then, but that's damned sure not the standard today. The standard today is will possible civilian casualties outweigh the military benefits. It's often an eye of the beholder sort of thing. Given the estimates of dead and wounded of invading Japan and that they rightfully believed that dropping the bombs could end the

  • This whole vid [vimeo.com] is well worth your time (seriously, make a note to watch the whole thing today if you haven't), but the last section (starting at 14:20) is particularly striking in how few war deaths have occured since the invention (and rapid development/manufacture) of nuclear weapons.

    It's a decade old and could use an update, but I was surprised to recently read that it mostly holds up even with the Ukraine/Russia War.
    • Nobody wants to admit that nuclear weapons , including the use of two of them on cities, has saved a tremendous number of lives. If you look at the rising frequency of wars as nations got more powerful - it's not a big stretch to think that there would have been another war probably around 1960, then 1975, then 1990, etc.

  • I remember around the 1980s a myth circulated that all crewmembers had sooner or later comitted suicide because they couldn't live with the guilt.

  • My dad was a radar nav on one of the decoy B29s that escorted the Enola Gay. He never discussed that mission.

  • The Enola Gay is currently sitting in the National Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport outside of Washington DC.
    The aircraft, Bockscar, that dropped the second nuclear weapon, Fat Man, are currently sitting at the National Museum of the United States Air Force just outside of Dayton, Ohio.
    There are many emotions that develop when standing next to the actual physical aircraft (and the decommissioned weapons) - it makes all the facts of the event somewhat more tangible. Visiting those museums is totally

  • I grew up in Oak Ridge, TN. I knew many people who worked on the bomb, mostly on the uranium isotope separation problem. I'm 2 degrees of separation from Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Teller, etc.

    My Father was stationed on Okinawa during the Korean War. He shot photos of some of the caves where the bones of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians who died during Okinawa were stored. I've read that the average lifespan of a 2nd Lt of Marines who hit the beaches of Okinawa was measured in minutes. A friend whos

  • I think it's worth pointing out that there is no clear consensus among mainstream historians that the atomic bombing of Japan saved lives (that would otherwise have been lost in a mainland invasion).

    Leaders in America told the "saving lives" narrative, and it was the common explanation, particularly in America, perticularly in the immediate post-war decades. But of course both American leaders, and patriotic Americans, would find it difficult to view the question dispassionately.

    The decision to use the atom

  • Probably it is easy to say afterwards.

    But, to my knowledge there is only one country on this world that use atomic weapon to mass kill people: The famous huge "democracy" called USA.

    Of course, killing will prevent more killing, might pretend some people, especially the kind of people who order other to kill. What a shame! What a barbarian reasoning!

    And in order to implement such murders, these people have to use, very young and naive men, called "soldiers", or "chair à canon" in some countries. They ar

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