“I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world - I'd like to see them all abolished,” Van Kirk said. The plane’s navigator and last surviving member of the crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died last week at the age of 93.īefore his death, Van Kirk told the Associated Press that while the mission went perfectly, and that he believed the bombing which killed some 140,000 people actually saved lives in the long run, he felt slightly conflicted. Approximately 140,000 people were killed in the attack on Japan on 6 August 1945.
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As navigator of the Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the bomb, Theodore Van Kirk was only 24 years old. Tibbets, a 30-year-old colonel at the time of the bombing, named the bomber after his mother. TIBBETS, THEODORE VAN KIRK B/w photo of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, with pilot Paul Tibbets. A member of the US air crew responsible for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima has died. Inside the window-covered nose of the plane, you can see where pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee sat during Special Mission No. The plane was further modified to carry the atomic bomb - dubbed “Little Boy” - which was dropped from the front bomb bay onto the heart of Hiroshima during the mission. The Enola Gay, meanwhile, lurched upward on shedding the weight of the bomb and executed a hairpin turn to escape the expected shock wave of the blast.
![enola gay crew and positions enola gay crew and positions](https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/universityarchives/48/697748/H19845-L248901758_original.jpg)
Crew notes Four members of the Enola Gay crew had been on Tibbets’s B-17 crew in Europe: bombardier Ferebee (called by Tibbets the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bombsight) navigator Van Kirk, tail gunner Caron, and flight engineer Duzenbury. Enola Gay Crew back row (L-R) Major Ferebee, Captain. (Associated Press)At the time of its mission, the Enola Gay was among the most sophisticated, propeller-driven bombers in the sky during the Second World War, according to the Smithsonian. specialists rather than flight crew members. Signed by Paul Tibbets (pilot), Dutch Van Kirk (navigator) and Tom Ferebee (bombardier) in blue ink above their images. Paul Tibbets named the modified Boeing B-29 bomber used in Special Mission No. An evocative 10 x 8 inch photograph of three of the Enola Gay crew, the plane that dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.