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BG Paul W Tibbets, USAF, Ret: "That's their tough luck for being there."
The UK Guardian ^ | Tuesday August 6, 2002 | Studs Terkel

Posted on 08/06/2002 9:02:04 AM PDT by SlickWillard


Today is Hiroshima Day, the anniversary of the first use of a bomb so powerful that it would come to threaten the existence of the human race. Only two such devices have ever been used, but now, a decade after the end of the cold war, the world faces new dangers of nuclear attack - from India, Pakistan, Iraq, al-Qaida, and even the US. Launching a special investigation into nuclear weapons, Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the Enola Gay on its mission to Japan, tells Studs Terkel why he has no regrets - and why he wouldn't hesitate to use it again

Studs Terkel

Tuesday August 6, 2002

Studs Terkel: We're seated here, two old gaffers. Me and Paul Tibbets, 89 years old, brigadier-general retired, in his home town of Columbus, Ohio, where has lived for many years.

Paul Tibbets: Hey, you've got to correct that. I'm only 87. You said 89.

ST: I know. See, I'm 90. So I got you beat by three years. Now we've had a nice lunch, you and I and your companion. I noticed as we sat in that restaurant, people passed by. They didn't know who you were. But once upon a time, you flew a plane called the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima, in Japan, on a Sunday morning - August 6 1945 - and a bomb fell. It was the atomic bomb, the first ever. And that particular moment changed the whole world around. You were the pilot of that plane.

PT: Yes, I was the pilot.

ST: And the Enola Gay was named after...

PT: My mother. She was Enola Gay Haggard before she married my dad, and my dad never supported me with the flying - he hated airplanes and motorcycles. When I told them I was going to leave college and go fly planes in the army air corps, my dad said, "Well, I've sent you through school, bought you automobiles, given you money to run around with the girls, but from here on, you're on your own. If you want to go kill yourself, go ahead, I don't give a damn." Then Mom just quietly said, "Paul, if you want to go fly airplanes, you're going to be all right." And that was that.

ST: Where was that?

PT: Well, that was Miami, Florida. My dad had been in the real estate business down there for years, and at that time he was retired. And I was going to school at Gaysville, Florida, but I had to leave after two years and go to Cincinnati because Florida had no medical school.

ST: You were thinking of being a doctor?

PT: I didn't think that, my father thought it. He said, "You're going to be a doctor," and I just nodded my head and that was it. And I started out that way; but about a year before, I was able to get into an airplane, fly it - I soloed - and I knew then that I had to go fly airplanes.

ST: Now by 1944 you were a pilot - a test pilot on the programme to develop the B-29 bomber. When did you get word that you had a special assignment?

PT: One day [in September 1944] I'm running a test on a B-29, I land, a man meets me. He says he just got a call from General Uzal Ent [commander of the second air force] at Colorado Springs, he wants me in his office the next morning at nine o'clock. He said, "Bring your clothing - your B4 bag - because you're not coming back." Well, I didn't know what it was and didn't pay any attention to it - it was just another assignment.

I got to Colorado Springs the next morning perfectly on time. A man named Lansdale met me, walked me to General Ent's office and closed the door behind me. With him was a man wearing a blue suit, a US Navy captain - that was William Parsons, who flew with me to Hiroshima - and Dr Norman Ramsey, Columbia University professor in nuclear physics. And Norman said: "OK, we've got what we call the Manhattan Project. What we're doing is trying to develop an atomic bomb. We've gotten to the point now where we can't go much further till we have airplanes to work with."

He gave me an explanation which probably lasted 45, 50 minutes, and they left. General Ent looked at me and said, "The other day, General Arnold [commander general of the army air corps] offered me three names." Both of the others were full colonels; I was lieutenant-colonel. He said that when General Arnold asked which of them could do this atomic weapons deal, he replied without hesitation, "Paul Tibbets is the man to do it." I said, "Well, thank you, sir." Then he laid out what was going on and it was up to me now to put together an organisation and train them to drop atomic weapons on both Europe and the Pacific - Tokyo.

ST: Interesting that they would have dropped it on Europe as well. We didn't know that.

PT: My edict was as clear as could be. Drop simultaneously in Europe and the Pacific because of the secrecy problem - you couldn't drop it in one part of the world without dropping it in the other. And so he said, "I don't know what to tell you, but I know you happen to have B-29s to start with. I've got a squadron in training in Nebraska - they have the best record so far of anybody we've got. I want you to go visit them, look at them, talk to them, do whatever you want. If they don't suit you, we'll get you some more." He said: "There's nobody could tell you what you have to do because nobody knows. If we can do anything to help you, ask me." I said thank you very much. He said, "Paul, be careful how you treat this responsibility, because if you're successful you'll probably be called a hero. And if you're unsuccessful, you might wind up in prison."

ST: Did you know the power of an atomic bomb? Were you told about that?

PT: No, I didn't know anything at that time. But I knew how to put an organisation together. He said, "Go take a look at the bases, and call me back and tell me which one you want." I wanted to get back to Grand Island Nebraska, that's where my wife and two kids were, where my laundry was done and all that stuff. But I thought, "Well, I'll go to Wendover [army airfield, in Utah] first and see what they've got." As I came in over the hills I saw it was a beautiful spot. It had been a final staging place for units that were going through combat crew training, and the guys ahead of me were the last P-47 fighter outfit. This lieutenant-colonel in charge said, "We've just been advised to stop here and I don't know what you want to do... but if it has anything to do with this base it's the most perfect base I've ever been on. You've got full machine shops, everybody's qualified, they know what they want to do. It's a good place."

ST: And now you chose your own crew.

PT: Well, I had mentally done it before that. I knew right away I was going to get Tom Ferebee [the Enola Gay's bombardier] and Theodore "Dutch" van Kirk [navigator] and Wyatt Duzenbury [flight engineer].

ST: Guys you had flown with in Europe?

PT: Yeah.

ST: And now you're training. And you're also talking to physicists like Robert Oppenheimer [senior scientist on the Manhattan project].

PT: I think I went to Los Alamos [the Manhattan project HQ] three times, and each time I got to see Dr Oppenheimer working in his own environment. Later, thinking about it, here's a young man, a brilliant person. And he's a chain smoker and he drinks cocktails. And he hates fat men. And General Leslie Groves [the general in charge of the Manhattan project], he's a fat man, and he hates people who smoke and drink. The two of them are the first, original odd couple.

ST: They had a feud, Groves and Oppenheimer?

PT: Yeah, but neither one of them showed it. Each one of them had a job to do.

ST: Did Oppenheimer tell you about the destructive nature of the bomb?

PT: No.

ST: How did you know about that?

PT: From Dr Ramsey. He said the only thing we can tell you about it is, it's going to explode with the force of 20,000 tons of TNT. I'd never seen 1lb of TNT blow up. I'd never heard of anybody who'd seen 100lbs of TNT blow up. All I felt was that this was gonna be one hell of a big bang.

ST: Twenty thousand tons - that's equivalent to how many planes full of bombs?

PT: Well, I think the two bombs that we used [at Hiroshima and Nagasaki] had more power than all the bombs the air force had used during the war on Europe.

ST: So Ramsey told you about the possibilities.

PT: Even though it was still theory, whatever those guys told me, that's what happened. So I was ready to say I wanted to go to war, but I wanted to ask Oppenheimer how to get away from the bomb after we dropped it. I told him that when we had dropped bombs in Europe and North Africa, we'd flown straight ahead after dropping them - which is also the trajectory of the bomb. But what should we do this time? He said, "You can't fly straight ahead because you'd be right over the top when it blows up and nobody would ever know you were there." He said I had to turn tangent to the expanding shockwave. I said, "Well, I've had some trigonometry, some physics. What is tangency in this case?" He said it was 159 degrees in either direction. "Turn 159 degrees as fast as you can and you'll be able to put yourself the greatest distance from where the bomb exploded."

ST: How many seconds did you have to make that turn?

PT: I had dropped enough practice bombs to realise that the charges would blow around 1,500ft in the air, so I would have 40 to 42 seconds to turn 159 degrees. I went back to Wendover as quick as I could and took the airplane up. I got myself to 25,000ft, and I practised turning, steeper, steeper, steeper and I got it where I could pull it round in 40 seconds. The tail was shaking dramatically and I was afraid of it breaking off, but I didn't quit. That was my goal. And I practised and practised until, without even thinking about it, I could do it in between 40 and 42, all the time. So, when that day came...

ST: You got the go-ahead on August 5.

PT: Yeah. We were in Tinian [the US island base in the Pacific] at the time we got the OK. They had sent this Norwegian to the weather station out on Guam [the US's westernmost territory] and I had a copy of his report. We said that, based on his forecast, the sixth day of August would be the best day that we could get over Honshu [the island on which Hiroshima stands]. So we did everything that had to be done to get the crews ready to go: airplane loaded, crews briefed, all of the things checked that you have to check before you can fly over enemy territory.

General Groves had a brigadier-general who was connected back to Washington DC by a special teletype machine. He stayed close to that thing all the time, notifying people back there, all by code, that we were preparing these airplanes to go any time after midnight on the sixth. And that's the way it worked out. We were ready to go at about four o'clock in the afternoon on the fifth and we got word from the president that we were free to go: "Use 'em as you wish." They give you a time you're supposed to drop your bomb on target and that was 9.15 in the morning , but that was Tinian time, one hour later than Japanese time. I told Dutch, "You figure it out what time we have to start after midnight to be over the target at 9am."

ST: That'd be Sunday morning.

PT: Well, we got going down the runway at right about 2.15am and we took off, we met our rendezvous guys, we made our flight up to what we call the initial point, that would be a geographic position that you could not mistake. Well, of course we had the best one in the world with the rivers and bridges and that big shrine. There was no mistaking what it was.

ST: So you had to have the right navigator to get it on the button.

PT: The airplane has a bomb sight connected to the autopilot and the bombardier puts figures in there for where he wants to be when he drops the weapon, and that's transmitted to the airplane. We always took into account what would happen if we had a failure and the bomb bay doors didn't open: we had a manual release put in each airplane so it was right down by the bombardier and he could pull on that. And the guys in the airplanes that followed us to drop the instruments needed to know when it was going to go. We were told not to use the radio, but, hell, I had to. I told them I would say, "One minute out," "Thirty seconds out," "Twenty seconds" and "Ten" and then I'd count, "Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four seconds", which would give them a time to drop their cargo. They knew what was going on because they knew where we were. And that's exactly the way it worked, it was absolutely perfect.

After we got the airplanes in formation I crawled into the tunnel and went back to tell the men, I said, "You know what we're doing today?" They said, "Well, yeah, we're going on a bombing mission." I said, "Yeah, we're going on a bombing mission, but it's a little bit special." My tailgunner, Bob Caron, was pretty alert. He said, "Colonel, we wouldn't be playing with atoms today, would we?" I said, "Bob, you've got it just exactly right." So I went back up in the front end and I told the navigator, bombardier, flight engineer, in turn. I said, "OK, this is an atom bomb we're dropping." They listened intently but I didn't see any change in their faces or anything else. Those guys were no idiots. We'd been fiddling round with the most peculiar-shaped things we'd ever seen.

So we're coming down. We get to that point where I say "one second" and by the time I'd got that second out of my mouth the airplane had lurched, because 10,000lbs had come out of the front. I'm in this turn now, tight as I can get it, that helps me hold my altitude and helps me hold my airspeed and everything else all the way round. When I level out, the nose is a little bit high and as I look up there the whole sky is lit up in the prettiest blues and pinks I've ever seen in my life. It was just great.

I tell people I tasted it. "Well," they say, "what do you mean?" When I was a child, if you had a cavity in your tooth the dentist put some mixture of some cotton or whatever it was and lead into your teeth and pounded them in with a hammer. I learned that if I had a spoon of ice-cream and touched one of those teeth I got this electrolysis and I got the taste of lead out of it. And I knew right away what it was.

OK, we're all going. We had been briefed to stay off the radios: "Don't say a damn word, what we do is we make this turn, we're going to get out of here as fast as we can." I want to get out over the sea of Japan because I know they can't find me over there. With that done we're home free. Then Tom Ferebee has to fill out his bombardier's report and Dutch, the navigator, has to fill out a log. Tom is working on his log and says, "Dutch, what time were we over the target?" And Dutch says, "Nine-fifteen plus 15 seconds." Ferebee says: "What lousy navigating. Fifteen seconds off!"

ST: Did you hear an explosion?

PT: Oh yeah. The shockwave was coming up at us after we turned. And the tailgunner said, "Here it comes." About the time he said that, we got this kick in the ass. I had accelerometers installed in all airplanes to record the magnitude of the bomb. It hit us with two and a half G. Next day, when we got figures from the scientists on what they had learned from all the things, they said, "When that bomb exploded, your airplane was 10 and half miles away from it."

ST: Did you see that mushroom cloud?

PT: You see all kinds of mushroom clouds, but they were made with different types of bombs. The Hiroshima bomb did not make a mushroom. It was what I call a stringer. It just came up. It was black as hell, and it had light and colours and white in it and grey colour in it and the top was like a folded-up Christmas tree.

ST: Do you have any idea what happened down below?

PT: Pandemonium! I think it's best stated by one of the historians, who said: "In one micro-second, the city of Hiroshima didn't exist."

ST: You came back, and you visited President Truman.

PT: We're talking 1948 now. I'm back in the Pentagon and I get notice from the chief of staff, Carl Spaatz, the first chief of staff of the air force. When we got to General Spaatz's office, General Doolittle was there, and a colonel named Dave Shillen. Spaatz said, "Gentlemen, I just got word from the president he wants us to go over to his office immediately." On the way over, Doolittle and Spaatz were doing some talking; I wasn't saying very much. When we got out of the car we were escorted right quick to the Oval Office. There was a black man there who always took care of Truman's needs and he said, "General Spaatz, will you please be facing the desk?" And now, facing the desk, Spaatz is on the right, Doolittle and Shillen. Of course, militarily speaking, that's the correct order: because Spaatz is senior, Doolittle has to sit to his left.

Then I was taken by this man and put in the chair that was right beside the president's desk, beside his left hand. Anyway, we got a cup of coffee and we got most of it consumed when Truman walked in and everybody stood on their feet. He said, "Sit down, please," and he had a big smile on his face and he said, "General Spaatz, I want to congratulate you on being first chief of the air force," because it was no longer the air corps. Spaatz said, "Thank you, sir, it's a great honour and I appreciate it." And he said to Doolittle: "That was a magnificent thing you pulled flying off of that carrier," and Doolittle said, "All in a day's work, Mr President." And he looked at Dave Shillen and said, "Colonel Shillen, I want to congratulate you on having the foresight to recognise the potential in aerial refuelling. We're gonna need it bad some day." And he said thank you very much.

Then he looked at me for 10 seconds and he didn't say anything. And when he finally did, he said, "What do you think?" I said, "Mr President, I think I did what I was told." He slapped his hand on the table and said: "You're damn right you did, and I'm the guy who sent you. If anybody gives you a hard time about it, refer them to me."

ST: Anybody ever give you a hard time?

PT: Nobody gave me a hard time.

ST: Do you ever have any second thoughts about the bomb?

PT: Second thoughts? No. Studs, look. Number one, I got into the air corps to defend the United States to the best of my ability. That's what I believe in and that's what I work for. Number two, I'd had so much experience with airplanes... I'd had jobs where there was no particular direction about how you do it and then of course I put this thing together with my own thoughts on how it should be because when I got the directive I was to be self-supporting at all times.

On the way to the target I was thinking: I can't think of any mistakes I've made. Maybe I did make a mistake: maybe I was too damned assured. At 29 years of age I was so shot in the ass with confidence I didn't think there was anything I couldn't do. Of course, that applied to airplanes and people. So, no, I had no problem with it. I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we'd be doing that I thought, yes, we're going to kill a lot of people, but by God we're going to save a lot of lives. We won't have to invade [Japan].

ST: Why did they drop the second one, the Bockscar [bomb] on Nagasaki?

PT: Unknown to anybody else - I knew it, but nobody else knew - there was a third one. See, the first bomb went off and they didn't hear anything out of the Japanese for two or three days. The second bomb was dropped and again they were silent for another couple of days. Then I got a phone call from General Curtis LeMay [chief of staff of the strategic air forces in the Pacific]. He said, "You got another one of those damn things?" I said, "Yessir." He said, "Where is it?" I said, "Over in Utah." He said, "Get it out here. You and your crew are going to fly it." I said, "Yessir." I sent word back and the crew loaded it on an airplane and we headed back to bring it right on out to Trinian and when they got it to California debarkation point, the war was over.

ST: What did General LeMay have in mind with the third one?

PT: Nobody knows.

ST: One big question. Since September 11, what are your thoughts? People talk about nukes, the hydrogen bomb.

PT: Let's put it this way. I don't know any more about these terrorists than you do, I know nothing. When they bombed the Trade Centre I couldn't believe what was going on. We've fought many enemies at different times. But we knew who they were and where they were. These people, we don't know who they are or where they are. That's the point that bothers me. Because they're gonna strike again, I'll put money on it. And it's going to be damned dramatic. But they're gonna do it in their own sweet time. We've got to get into a position where we can kill the bastards. None of this business of taking them to court, the hell with that. I wouldn't waste five seconds on them.

ST: What about the bomb? Einstein said the world has changed since the atom was split.

PT: That's right. It has changed.

ST: And Oppenheimer knew that.

PT: Oppenheimer is dead. He did something for the world and people don't understand. And it is a free world.

ST: One last thing, when you hear people say, "Let's nuke 'em," "Let's nuke these people," what do you think?

PT: Oh, I wouldn't hesitate if I had the choice. I'd wipe 'em out. You're gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we've never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn't kill innocent people. If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: "You've killed so many civilians." That's their tough luck for being there.

ST: By the way, I forgot to say Enola Gay was originally called number 82. How did your mother feel about having her name on it?

PT: Well, I can only tell you what my dad said. My mother never changed her expression very much about anything, whether it was serious or light, but when she'd get tickled, her stomach would jiggle. My dad said to me that when the telephone in Miami rang, my mother was quiet first. Then, when it was announced on the radio, he said: "You should have seen the old gal's belly jiggle on that one."

· Further information on the Enola Gay can be found at www.theenolagay.com.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; US: Ohio
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To: rond
Does this mean our enemies have the right to target our own "concentrations of civilians"?

You are either a child or mentally challenged!!!!!!

Where have you been for the last year??????????

Terrorists have no rights or no wrongs........that's why they are called terrorists!!!!!

121 posted on 08/06/2002 2:55:35 PM PDT by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN
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To: rond
>>Does this mean our enemies have the right to target our own "concentrations of civilians"?<<

Even if we did target civlians (hypothetically), they would not be allowed to respond in kind. . .just war and the LOAC does not permit this. (The ol two wrongs don't make a right argument.)

We are not to target civilians as the aim of any attack, as just war requires we limit unnecessary civilian (innocent) suffering.

And we do try to limit such suffering, they do not, as it is their aim to cause the innocent to suffer as much as possible--yet I hear no complaints from HRW and AI. . .curious.
122 posted on 08/06/2002 2:58:20 PM PDT by Gunrunner2
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To: AmericanInTokyo
My comment was meant to provide an introduction for posting a portion of a news story about statements made by the mayor of Hiroshima. Those statements fit in nicely with this thread, although I disagree with the mayor's sentiments about American power.

My comment was hardly intended to be taken as a literal recommendation that the US should nuke Japan today.

I may be a royal jackass, but, if so, it's unrelated to the comment you've objected to.

123 posted on 08/06/2002 3:02:37 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: SlickWillard
I worked with the only crew member who was on both the Enola Gay and Bock's Car when they dropped the bombs. He was Jake Beser. He was not a regularly assigned crewman but was a countermeasures officer whose job it was to monitor the bomb detonating frequency to ensure that the frequency was clear so that the bomb would not go off prematurely.

He always firmly believed in what they had done.

124 posted on 08/06/2002 3:03:29 PM PDT by jackbill
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To: Dog Gone
OK. Thanks for the clarification. Sorry about that. I, too, believe the Mayor's comments out of line...but did not see any reason to have a second mission to Hiroshima by the "General" over it. Apology offered.
125 posted on 08/06/2002 3:05:10 PM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: rightwing2
Some of what you say may be true, but why are you seemingly unconcerned about the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in our raids on German cities?
126 posted on 08/06/2002 3:05:30 PM PDT by advocate10
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To: fire_eye
The Germans **ELECTED** Hitler.

Only in a rigged election (March, 1933). The Nazis vote share in free elections was sliding by the time the ministers talked von Hindeburg into appointing Hitler chancellor. The Nazis never won either the presidency or a parliamentary majority in a free election.

127 posted on 08/06/2002 3:07:48 PM PDT by Campion
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To: AmericanInTokyo
Apology not necessary, but accepted anyhow. I'll double check to make sure that Tibbets hasn't filed any flight plans today. ;-)
128 posted on 08/06/2002 3:09:10 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: westmex
A very interesting a and compeling read.Thought you'd like to see this.
129 posted on 08/06/2002 3:24:09 PM PDT by habs4ever
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To: rightwing2
Emperor Hirohito in his address to the Japanese people explaining their surrender stated that the atomic bombs were the reason.
130 posted on 08/06/2002 3:36:22 PM PDT by Moonman62
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To: Dog Gone
The mayor of Hiroshima criticized the United States for unilaterally pursuing its own interests and urged a worldwide ban on weapons of mass destruction, as thousands gathered Tuesday to mark the 57th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack.

In the annual ceremony at Peace Memorial Park, Tadatoshi Akiba suggested that Washington's policies in the post-Sept. 11 world were misguided.

``The United States government has no right to force Pax Americana on the rest of us, or to unilaterally determine the fate of the world,'' Akiba said. He also urged President Bush to visit Hiroshima to see ``with his own eyes what nuclear weapons hold in store.''

This guy sounds like he went to Berkeley, or some other liberal cesspool in the United States.

131 posted on 08/06/2002 3:40:13 PM PDT by Moonman62
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To: Moonman62
I'm sure the mayors of big cities in Japan (and especially in Hiroshima) are weenie liberals, just like in the USA.
132 posted on 08/06/2002 3:43:39 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: All
I worked with the son of General Tibbets in Louisiana. He was a fine man, just like his dad. He's named after his dad, and he's proud of his name, as well he should be.

To those here that would question General Tibbets character, I would say this: A soldier follows orders! Those orders are always to kill and destroy. To accomplish his mission he must justify, in his mind, the killing and the destruction. This is only human nature, and we are the most gentle people on the planet. You have to demonize, and dehumanize your enemy, because killing, to Americans, so abhorent and against our peaceful nature. So, that's what you do. Gooks, slopes, dinks, Japs, Krauts, commies, slant-eyes, even Red Coats, why do you think that these labels were invented? It was to dehumanize the enemy so that we could kill them, as we had to do in the defense of our home, our families, our freedom, and our country. You had to put those people in the sights of your weapon and, in a split second, be able to pull the trigger and wipe out their existance, you had to take their life, because they were your sworn enemy. You had to think what they would have done, if they prevailed, to your mother, or your sister, or you wife and children, or your neighbors. Then, in that split second, you had to do your duty.

If, for one moment, you think that we killed with joy, you are wrong. If you think that we are proud of killing and destroying, you are wrong. If you think that we don't have nightmares about what we had to did, you are wrong. If you don't think that we ask for forgiveness from God everyday, you are wrong. But, if you think that we are incapable of doing it all over again, you are still wrong. All of that complication is tied up in a bundle that is called, "A Soldier", the man that runs to be "In Harm's Way" for his country.

Soldiers don't cry, and we don't whine! We suck it up and stand united, and deliver death and destruction against any enemy that would cause our country harm, and you'd better thank the God that made you that we do it!

Duty, Honor, Country! We are the best and most feared fighting force on the face of this earth because we can actually be compassionate and deadly at the same time.

I would purpose that the critics of General Tibbets interview read that again, this time remember what I have said. It comes from a combat veteran.

133 posted on 08/06/2002 4:53:06 PM PDT by timydnuc
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To: rightwing2
…the deliberate killing or mass killing of innocent civilians is as immoral if done by nuclear or conventional bombing as it would be if you lined them up and shot them one by one with a firing squad.

You seem to be of the opinion that soldiers deserve what they get, but “innocent civilians” should be spared.

Most soldiers, worldwide and throughout history, were "innocent civilians" until their governments ordered/forced them to become soldiers, they really had no choice in the matter of becoming a soldier.

How is it moral to kill these uniformed innocent civilians, but it’s not morally OK to kill someone merely because their government hasn’t yet ordered them to wear a uniform?

It would be great if all killing and wars were done away with, but history shows us the best way to kill the fewest people in a war is to end the war the quickest way possible, which the A-bombs over Japan did.

You quote (truthfully I hope) a few subordinates who thought Japan was ready to surrender at any minute, and they didn’t think we should have dropped the A-bombs on Japan. What if they were wrong? What if many more hundreds of thousands on both sides were killed before the war was concluded? Would you just say tough luck”?

The man with the most information and overall responsibility, President Harry Truman, decided that the A-bomb was the correct weapon. Unlike the scenarios you present, Japan did not immediately surrender after the first A-bomb. Even after the second A-bomb the Japanese military were ready to keep fighting. Only when the Emperor stepped in and said in effect “no more” did Japan finally quit fighting.

One can play pointless “what if” and “should have” games forever, I believe we made the tough yet correct decision to drop the A-bombs on an aggressive expansionist country that needed to be stopped.

134 posted on 08/06/2002 5:41:12 PM PDT by RJL
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To: timydnuc
What a great post. Thanks.
135 posted on 08/06/2002 8:25:12 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: SlickWillard
Studs Terkel?

That's straight outta the comics.

136 posted on 08/06/2002 8:31:41 PM PDT by VaBthang4
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To: KenGum4
I wonder how Gen. Tibbet has had to deal with 100,000 deaths...

General Tibbets and some of the Enola Gay crew were in Yuma, Arizona about three years ago. A person in the crowd asked him if he had any regrets. Without pause, he said that he had absolutely none. To a person, the crew agreed and the audience gave them a standing ovation.

137 posted on 08/06/2002 8:45:34 PM PDT by pfflier
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To: SlickWillard
"Truman walked in and everybody stood on their feet. He said, "Sit down, please," and he had a big smile on his face and he said, "General Spaatz, I want to congratulate you on being first chief of the air force," because it was no longer the air corps. Spaatz said, "Thank you, sir, it's a great honour and I appreciate it." And he said to Doolittle: "That was a magnificent thing you pulled flying off of that carrier," and Doolittle said, "All in a day's work, Mr President." And he looked at Dave Shillen and said, "Colonel Shillen, I want to congratulate you on having the foresight to recognise the potential in aerial refuelling. We're gonna need it bad some day." And he said thank you very much.

Then he looked at me for 10 seconds and he didn't say anything. And when he finally did, he said, "What do you think?" I said, "Mr President, I think I did what I was told." He slapped his hand on the table and said: "You're damn right you did, and I'm the guy who sent you. If anybody gives you a hard time about it, refer them to me." "

Wow....awesome stuff.

138 posted on 08/06/2002 8:50:56 PM PDT by VaBthang4
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To: rond
Well it was tough luck for them being there. What, you think it was good luck?
139 posted on 08/06/2002 8:51:12 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: tom paine 2
I bet it was a sight to see. Good for you.
140 posted on 08/06/2002 8:52:47 PM PDT by VaBthang4
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