Handout photo of Capt. Theodore Van Kirk, center, as he and the rest of the crew return from the mission over Hiroshima, Japan Aug. 6, 1945. He was the navigator. Next to the left is Col. Paul Tibbetts, flight commander.
Farewell to a true hero.
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Our precious WWII veterans are passing so quickly. May the Lord comfort his family.
Bttt.
5.56mm
Could we wage WW2 today with our media?
There’d be constant photos of the dead babies and children from this bombing. Or Dresden.
Listening to my 91 year-old mother describe the news of that day is amazing.
Another hero gone.
Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, 93, was the navigator on the Aug. 6, 1945 flight that dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb.
From one navigator to another: job well done, rest in peace.
Duty well served. RIP
Rest in Peace Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk and in the arms of God. Am certain God understands why that bomb had to be dropped. Prayers for all of the friends and family of “Dutch”
Rest in peace.
Is it typical to have a guy with the rank of colonel as part of a flight crew? I think of colonels as being upper management in an office somewhere.
According to my calculations (based on the the fact that 150,000 or a quarter of the civilian population of Okinawa was killed during the invasion there in addition to the 12,000 allied and 110,000 Japanese military deaths) the atomic bombings (which caused a combined total of 246,000 Japanese deaths) saved 18.75 million Japanese lives and perhaps 150,000 allied lives, assuming that the fighting matched the intensity of the Okinawa campaign.
The TV series, Manhatten, is playing on WGN on Sunday nights. It is the semi-fictionalized story of the scientists at Los Alamos who were burning the midnight oil developing the Atomic bomb in a race against time to bring the war to an end.
I found the first episode interesting — especially since my husband worked at Berkeley’s Lawrence Radiation Lab in the early ‘60s with many of the 2nd generation of physicists.
Some of the leading characters are fictionalized, or based on the stories of composite people. I’m withholding my recommendation until I see more of the series.
He was told to go to a certain coordinate turn sharply and open the doors.
Neither he nor his co-pilot had any idea of the bomb that would be dropped from the other plane.
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.
RIP, sir, in the Arms of the Lord.
RIP, Sir. You did good.
Thank you for my freedom Captain Van Kirk, may God bless you and your loved ones.