Hiroshima's atomic bomber dies
General Paul Tibbets dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
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Thursday, 01, Nov 2007 06:43
The man who commanded the United States bomber which dropped the 'Little Boy' atomic bomb on Hiroshima during the second world war has died.
Paul Tibbets passed away this morning in his home town of Columbus, Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper reported. He was 92 and is believed to have been suffering heart problems.
General Tibbets was 30 years old on August 6th 1945 when he flew across the Pacific in his specially-modified B-29 Superfortress bomber on the historic mission.
At 08:15 local time he dropped the atomic bomb which ultimately resulted in the deaths of at least 140,000 Japanese civilians.
Afterwards Gen Tibbets remembered the view from his cockpit of the city below.
"If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified. The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge," he recalled.
"It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire."
Gen Tibbets never made public expressions of regret for the bombing, which, together with a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later, forced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally on August 15th.