Resurrection of the destroyers of the worlds (III)

A clear summer morning

« August 6th began on a bright, clear summer morning. About seven o’clock the air strike alarm, which we heard almost every day, and several planes appeared above the city. No one turned to the signal about eight o’clock, meaning that the danger passed. The Noviciat is evacuated by the Philosophical and Theological Department. Reminding me of the magnesium light, and I feel the heat of the window to find out the cause of this extraordinary phenomenon, but I do not see that bright yellow light. And the windows of the light were almost ten seconds at the same time. (1907-1983).

« Did I first flashed, did the sound of an explosion that had been heard from the inside? The beams and tiles have fallen on me, ”said Ms. Futaba another woman (Roberto Guillain’s article » I thought my last « , » I Thought My Last Hour Had Come « , The Atlantic, August 1980).

The interlocutor also told reporters that after the explosion, a terrible smell was reminiscent of the one left by the yellow phosphorus bombs, and that, with a strong rubbing nose and mouth with a towel, there were many pieces of leather on this.

Premiere: The world’s first nuclear weapon attempt was performed in the White Smilčiai rocket landfill in New Mexico in July 1945. / Photo by Associative Scanpix

« The skin was also peeled off my arms, as well as my elbow to the tips of my fingertips, all the skin of the right hand was loosened and grotesquely hanging. In August, it was 33, which during the explosion was slightly more than a mile (1,900 yards) from the epicenter of the explosion.

The mission of inevitable evil

To implement this task, ie, to use the first nuclear cartridge for its intended purpose, the honor was on behalf of the « baptized » Boeing B-29 Superfortress type bomber.

It was piloted by Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. (1915-2007), and Enola Gay’s name was given to honor the pilot’s mother.

According to the military himself, the mother has always been a source of his strength and supported his son when he decided to quit the medical path and become a pilot of the Air Force (the future pilot’s father was contradicted).

In addition to the main pilot, other persons participated in an important mission: second pilot Robert Alvin Lewis (1917-1983), Bombarder Thomas Wilson Ferebee (1918-2000), Dutch Navigator Theodore Jerome Van Kirk (1921-2014) Sterling Parsons (1901–1953), Jacob Besser (1921-1992) and six other military personnel of various specializations and duties.

The United States authorities were well aware that this flight was not a regular air raid, so two other planes flew towards Hiroshima that day, in addition to Enola Gay.

One of them, nameless and later baptized in the name of « Necessary Evil », had to perpetuate the explosion, while another called The Great Artist was pushed into a variety of devices needed for scientific research.

It is said that the aircraft went to the big mission by climbing the Tinian Island in the Marian Archipelago, and then each flew to the Ivo Island of Ivo near Japan.

Here they « met » and all attracted the main Japanese islands.

He did not regret: even many years later, members of the ENOLA Gay bomber on Hiroshima’s atomic bomb – (from left) bomber T. Ferebee, pilot PW Tibbets and co -driver T. Van Kirkas – said they did not regret what they had to do. / Photo by Scanpix

During the flight, WS Parsons exerted a bomb called Little Boy, and his assistant Morris Richard Jeppson (1922-2010) removed the safeguards about half an hour before the trip destination.

“I have become death now”

Have you survived Enola Gay’s surviving flight to Hiroshim a lot of years later, the crew members regretted what they had to do?

Back in 2005 Three remaining living crew members PW Tibbets, TJ Van Kirk and the fuses, MR Jeppson publicly stated that he did not regret anything, as the use of nuclear weapons was inevitable at the time.

It is possible to understand the position of the aircraft crew – they were soldiers and executed orders, but some scientists who worked on the invention eventually began to follow a slightly different approach to their « child ».

« We realized that the world would never be the same as before. A few people laughed, a few cried. I think we were all more or less a similar approach, ”said JR Oppenheimer, two decades later in the NBC television documentary » Decision to drop the bomb « (1965).