Brigadier General Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., US Air Force (Retired), passed away today. General Tibbets (then colonel) was the pilot of the Enola Gay on August 6, 1945, dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., whose B-29 bomber dubbed the Enola Gay dropped the 9,000-pound "Little Boy" bomb on August 6, 1945, died at his home in the midwest city of Columbus, Ohio.
He had been suffering from heart problems, manager and publisher Gerry Newhouse told AFP.
Tibbets never regretted the bombing that led to the end of World War II but at a horrific price: 140,000 dead immediately and 80,000 other Japanese succumbing in the aftermath, according to Hiroshima officials.
"That's what it took to end the war," he told the Columbus Dispatch in 2003. "I went out to stop the killing all over."
Tibbets was just a 30-year-old lieutenant colonel when he piloted the plane named after his mother. Decades later, the memory of the first atomic bomb fired in anger stayed vivid in his mind.
My wife and I took our family to an airfield in Kissimmee, Florida several years ago to meet General Tibbets, who was there signing copies of his autobiography. We got a signed copy of the book for my oldest son's birthday and shook hands with the general. We took some pictures, but I am not sure where they are, I'll have to look around at home to see if I can find them.
UPDATE: AP Obituary here. It adds a sad detail to the report of General Tibbet's death:
Tibbets grew tired of criticism for delivering the first nuclear weapon used in wartime, telling family and friends that he wanted no funeral service or headstone because he feared a burial site would only give detractors a place to protest.
Rest in peace, General.
