The Japanese surrender followed the dropping of a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and the final ceremonies were held Sept. Tibbets said the Enola Gay took no buffeting from the explosion, which happened when the B-29 was 10.5 miles from the point of impact. Without hesitation Oppenheimer replied: "Turn either way 139 degrees." The scientist had figured out in advance what to do to avoid the ever-expanding shock wave, Tibbets said. The bomb exploded at about 1,900 feet over the center of Hiroshima, a city with numerous military installations.ĭuring a briefing with Oppenheimer, Tibbets said, he asked about handling the plane after the bomb had been dropped. Tibbets said at the time the bomb was dropped he was flying at an altitude of 31,700 feet. The Enola Gay took off from Tinian Island in the Marianas at 2:45 a.m.
Gavin Newsom goes scorched earth on Ron DeSantis, Joe Manchin, Democratic Party, more over Roe v.Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project that produced the "gadget," as the bomb was sometimes called. In 1944, Tibbets was briefed on the Hiroshima mission by physicist J. mission of the B-17 Flying Fortress against the Germans. He flew 25 combat missions over Europe, including the first U.S. Tibbets joined the Army Air Corps in 1937 and trained at Kelly Field in San Antonio. "Who do you want to see it? Suppose it fails?"Īnother factor, he said, was that the spirit of the Japanese military would have stifled any talk of surrender, as it very nearly did after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki. "Where would the demonstration be held?" Tibbets asked. He has no use for the idea, floated at the time and still current in some circles, that a demonstration at some remote spot of the bomb's destructive power force might have induced the Japanese to surrender.
The bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima, and an estimated 140,000 people lost their lives. Tibbets said Friday that he had no prior conception of the carnage and damage the bomb would cause.