Harry Truman made this radio announcement about the bomb. President HARRY TRUMAN: The world doesn't know that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.
It just - it was devastating to take a look at it. And where - we had seen the city on our way in, I saw nothing but a bunch of boiling debris with fire and smoke and all that kind of stuff. And at the same time, I felt the taste of lead in my mouth. TIBBETS: I saw the sky in front of me light up brilliantly with all kinds of colors. I hooded(ph) the circuits, and then the next thing that happened, the bomb had left the airplane.īLOCK: Tibbets flew the plane steeply upwards as the nearly 5 ton bomb fell and exploded. We then all got ready for the bomb, the final bomb run. PAUL TIBBETS (Pilot, Enola Gay): As we approached the target, finally, Ferebee says I got the aiming point, which was Aioi Bridge, if I remember the name of it correctly. Tibbets remembered his bombardier, spotting their target from 31,000 feet above Japan. In 2000, Paul Tibbets told NPR about the attack of August 6, 1945. He was then a 30-year-old colonel and he'd named his plane Enola Gay after his mother. General Paul Tibbets did many things in his 92 years, but nothing more world-shattering than piloting the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb.
A famous military man of an earlier era has died.
