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Last surviving Enola Gay crewman dies in Stone Mountain
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 7/29/2014 | Mike Morris and Steve Visser

Posted on 07/29/2014 3:47:56 PM PDT by iowamark

The last surviving crewman of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, died overnight at his Stone Mountain home.

Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, 93, was the navigator on the Aug. 6, 1945 flight that dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb.

With the 2010 death of Morris Jeppson, Van Kirk became the only one of the dozen crew members left.

For a number of years, he lived at a retirement community in Stone Mountain where by chance he found himself sharing the place with James Starnes, an Atlantan who had a front-row seat at history. Starnes was the navigator on the USS Missouri and the mighty battleship’s officer of the deck on Sept. 2, 1945 who greeted Japanese officials boarding to officially surrender.

“We were two individuals who happened to be at historic dates,” said Starnes, who said his friend died Monday after being hospitalized for a few weeks. “The passing always hurts so much. I told someone today that this was the first time I shed a tear for someone in a long time.”

(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Georgia
KEYWORDS: enolagay; milhist; obituary; theodorevankirk; veteran; wwii
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To: iowamark

Hiroshima is flat so there was a high correspondence between survivorship and distance from ground-zero.

Nagasaki was a back-up target and unlike HIroshima it’s very hilly —you could have someone just on the other side of the hill from epicenter who survived, while someone considerably further away died.

Kokura was supposed 2b destroyed but was simply cloudy that day.


21 posted on 07/29/2014 4:53:19 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: iowamark
Proud to have met Dutch at an Air Fest years ago.
We had in common a chemistry degree from Bucknell University.
A truly fine gentleman.
22 posted on 07/29/2014 4:58:56 PM PDT by Amagi (Lenin: "Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.")
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To: iowamark

RIP, sir, in the Arms of the Lord.


23 posted on 07/29/2014 5:04:27 PM PDT by Bigg Red (31 May 2014: Obamugabe officially declares the USA a vanquished subject of the Global Caliphate.)
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To: Yardstick

If you are referring to Col. Tibbets, he was the 509th Composite Group’s Commanding Officer. He had been involved in the development of the B-29. The 509th was designed specifically for delivery of the atomic bomb.


24 posted on 07/29/2014 5:06:15 PM PDT by iowamark (I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy)
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To: iowamark

The Doolittle raiders outlived them, but not by much.


25 posted on 07/29/2014 5:06:22 PM PDT by henkster (Do I really need a sarc tag?)
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To: iowamark

RIP, Sir. You did good.


26 posted on 07/29/2014 5:47:56 PM PDT by righttackle44 (Take scalps. Leave the bodies as a warning.)
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To: GreyFriar

May he rest in peace.


27 posted on 07/29/2014 6:17:29 PM PDT by zot
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To: TigerClaws
“Could we wage WW2 today with our media?”

We damn sure couldn't with the Rules of Engagement we're forced to operate under today. Not to mention a limp-wristed President and a Congress of eunuchs.

28 posted on 07/29/2014 6:21:59 PM PDT by beelzepug (You can't fix a broken washing machine by washing more expensive clothes in it.)
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To: iowamark

Col Tibbets son died in the past year or so in Butler Co. Alabama. I saw the obit in the paper and called the paper a day or so later. they had no idear of his Dad. Latest bunch of news paper people have no knowledge of history.


29 posted on 07/29/2014 6:45:13 PM PDT by TweetEBird007
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To: Yardstick

When you only have two bombs that cost billions to make, the crew better be the best.


30 posted on 07/29/2014 7:07:13 PM PDT by varyouga
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

And don’t forget that the quick end to war also saved the lives of many hundreds of thousands of people living and working in Japanese slave labor camps or living under Japanese occupation. I understand several studies suggest that deaths of people in the camps or under occupation was somewhere between 10,000-20,000 per month.


31 posted on 07/29/2014 7:13:49 PM PDT by Maine Mariner
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To: iowamark

Thank you for my freedom Captain Van Kirk, may God bless you and your loved ones.


32 posted on 07/29/2014 8:10:19 PM PDT by jmacusa (Liberalism defined: When mom and dad go away for the weekend and the kids are in charge.)
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To: section9
These men and millions of other ordinary Americans did nothing less extraordinary then saved the world. God Bless them all.
33 posted on 07/29/2014 8:13:00 PM PDT by jmacusa (Liberalism defined: When mom and dad go away for the weekend and the kids are in charge.)
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To: Gay State Conservative
They gave their tomorrows so that we could have our today.
34 posted on 07/29/2014 8:15:30 PM PDT by jmacusa (Liberalism defined: When mom and dad go away for the weekend and the kids are in charge.)
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To: iowamark

Sad to see the WWII generation go. RIP to Mr. Van Kirk, he did his job well. BTW, a couple of years ago, he passed on as well, but I knew a WWII vet who was on Tinian. He watched them load “Little Boy” on the Enola Gay although at the time he did not know what was going on. After the Enola Gay came back from bombing Hiroshima, he served Colonial Tibbits and the crew in the officer’s club and he remembers Tibbits saying over and over, “what have we done?” He also remembered “Bock’s Car” too. He also told the story where he fought two Japanese army men on the island where he shot one and bayonetted the other in the stomach.


35 posted on 07/29/2014 9:13:12 PM PDT by Nowhere Man (Mom I miss you! (8-20-1938 to 11-18-2013) Cancer sucks)
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To: iowamark

RIP.


36 posted on 07/30/2014 1:11:48 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

I think the estimate for Allied deaths in a full-scale invasion of Japan would’ve been at minimum a million or more.


37 posted on 07/30/2014 1:16:12 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Yeah, I forgot to carry a zero, it was 1.5 million.


38 posted on 07/30/2014 1:55:41 AM PDT by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

Thankfully a horrific spectacle never to be. I don’t think either side would’ve ever fully recovered from that.


39 posted on 07/30/2014 2:14:18 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Some historians believe that by 1945, we would have started to run out of men who would make good soldiers, maybe we were close to being bled dry. The UK was much worse. If that was the case, we had to bring the atomic bomb into play.


40 posted on 07/30/2014 4:39:00 PM PDT by Nowhere Man (Mom I miss you! (8-20-1938 to 11-18-2013) Cancer sucks)
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