Friday, November 02, 2007

"The Man Who Won the War" passes.

On the morning of August 6th 1945, Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. entered history by killing tens of thousands of Japanese in a single stroke; Piloting a B-29 bomber named after his mother, he dropped the deadliest weapon invented on Hiroshima.

Right: Tibbets (center) with his crew of the Enola Gay.

In the years that followed Tibbets was confounded by peoples perceptions that he was in some way disturbed by what he had done. He heard may urban legends about himself being on the verge of suicide, attending mental institutions and drinking himself silly each night since his "horrific act". In reality he had been promoted to Brigadier General and was commanding the National Crisis Center at the Pentagon before his retirement in 1966. Tibbets died at age 92 at his Columbus home after a two-month decline caused by a variety of health problems.

In 1976, he was criticised for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.

Former U.S. Sen. John Glenn, a former Marine fighter pilot, said people who criticised Tibbets for piloting the plane that dropped the bomb failed to recognize that an allied invasion of Japan, which the bomb helped avert, would have resulted in the deaths of several million people. "It wasn't his decision. It was a presidential decision, and he was an officer that carried out his duty," Glenn said. "It's a horrible weapon, but war is pretty horrible, too."

"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," Tibbets said once. "You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. You use anything at your disposal. I sleep clearly every night."

"I think it's a disgrace that I never hear the word "hero" in conjunction with this man" said Lt. Colonel Creedon of UNETIDA. "I hope when the time comes to destroy a planet to prevent a war, there'll be people like Paul Tibbets who'll obey without conscience or question and perform their sworn duty. Amen."

Source: Yahoo News

8 comments:

Bruce Russell said...

And how. I've got a couple of uncles who're probably still kicking because they didn't have to participate in the invasion of Japan due to this guy, and on behalf of them, I say, "well done, soldier."

Anonymous said...

"I hope when the time comes to destroy a planet to prevent a war, there'll be people like Paul Tibbets who'll obey without conscience or question and perform their sworn duty. Amen."

People like you Lt.Col?

Forget Tibbits, how far would you go in the pursuit of your duty?, Literally to the end of the Earth? ;)

Unknown said...

hehe...it says 'gay' on that plane.....he he he

Anonymous said...

I think the Colonel would indeed destroy the Earth to keep it from falling into enemy hands.

At least I hope he would. I don't want to be Psychlo fodder :)

Anonymous said...

Grunt, you've a very good point there, as we all know the Lt.Col considers everyone (including his own subordinates) to be the enemy, if he every got his grubby mites on the means to detroy the earth, then it is logically to assume that he would already consider it in the wrong hands, meaning,... quick cancel all outstanding Broken Arrow operations that the Lt.Col has been assigned to!

Major General Creedon said...

I know what had to be done. But I'm sure it won't come to that...

Anonymous said...

Colonel: We can but hope...

Anonymous said...

Aaron Its a completely fabrication that the Lt.Col's name directly translates as "Abandon Hope" in Arabic.