Free Republic

On the Greenwich Workshop videotape now owned by the Smithsonian, Enola Gay pilot Tibbetts states they cancelled shipment of a third bomb to Tinian in the Marianas when Japanese surrender was announced. The videotape is titled “The Men Who Brought the Dawn,” and shows crews of both planes in personal statements and interviews, as well as original films from Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The leaflet shown in the CIA article was one of three using the same B29 plane picture and the same message warning of imminent bombing. Different cities were cited (in circles) depending on the B29 run for different missions on different dates. The warning leaflets (#2106 known as the LeMay Bombing Notice) were created to warn of these regular B29 bombing runs using “fire bombs” found to be particularly devastating in the four-hour March 9-10 bombing of Tokyo which destroyed more lives & property than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The text of the leaflet was not changed for Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the words “atomic bomb” would have carried no meaning. Station KSAI on Saipan broadcast warnings directly to Japan as well. Lieutenant General N. F. Twining (USA Commanding), in his 12 August 1945 letter of appreciation to the Office of War Information writes under the letterhead of “Headquarters Twentieth Air Force, Office of the Commanding General, APO 234, c/o Postmaster, San Francisco, California.” Maybe they just called themselves “Air Force”??