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Such an airplane would fly higher, faster, and above the effective range of anti-aircraft fire.Ī B-29 bombardment squadron, the 393rd, in its final stage of training, and Wendover Army Air Base located on the Utah/Nevada border were selected by Paul for "starters".
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Paul requisitioned 15 new B-29s and specified they be stripped of turrets and armor plating except for the tail gunner position that fuel-injected engines and new technology reversible-pitch propellers be installed and the bomb bay re-configured to suspend, from a single point, ten thousand pounds. If you are denied something you need, restate your need is for "SILVERPLATE" (a codename) and your request will be honored without question." Use normal channels to the extent possible. The unit would support Los Alamos with flight test airplanes to establish ballistics and detonator reliability to explode the bombs. He would also determine and supervise the modifications necessary to make the B-29 capable of delivering the weapons, and for this, the unit had to be self-sufficient. It was to be his responsibility to organize and train a unit to deliver these weapons in combat operations.
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In September 1944, Paul was briefed on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the development of the atom bomb. This eventually gave him more experience as to the capabilities and limitations of a B-29 than any other pilot at that time. He taught himself to fly the airplane and subsequently flew it about 400 hours in tests. In March 1943, he was returned to the states to test the combat capability of Boeing's new Super Fortress, the B-29, an airplane plagued with problems. In November of that year he was in Algeria leading the first bombardment missions in support of the North African invasion. He flew 25 missions in B-17s, including the first American Flying Fortress raid against occupied Europe. In February 1942, Paul became the Squadron Commander of the 340th Bomb Squadron, 97th Bombardment Group, destined for England. A year later he got his pilot wings at Kelly Field, Texas and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. So, on February 25th, 1937, Paul enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Later he attended the Universities of Florida and Cincinnati in pursuit of a career in medicine, but his determination to fly was greater than that of a career both parents wanted for him. His teen years were spent attending Western Military Academy. From that day on, Paul knew he had to fly. As part of an advertising stunt, he threw Baby Ruth candy bars, with paper parachutes attached, from a biplane flying over a crowd gathered at the Hialeah horse track near Miami. Later his parents moved to Florida where, at the age of twelve, Paul had his first airplane ride. was born in Quincy, Illinois on February 23rd, 1915. He and veterans groups said too much attention was being paid to Japan's suffering and not enough to its military brutality. In 1995, Gen Tibbets denounced as a "damn big insult" a planned 50th anniversary exhibition of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution that put the bombing in context of the suffering it caused. Gen Tibbets said it was not meant as an insult but the US government formally apologised. In 1976, Gen Tibbets was criticised for re-enacting the bombing at an air show in Texas.Ī mushroom cloud was set off as he over flew in a B-29 Superfortress in a stunt that outraged Japan. Gen Tibbets said then: "Thousands of former soldiers and military family members have expressed a particularly touching and personal gratitude suggesting that they might not be alive today had it been necessary to resort to an invasion of the Japanese home islands to end the fighting." On the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima, the surviving members of the Enola Gay crew - Gen Tibbets, Theodore J "Dutch" Van Kirk (the navigator) and Morris R Jeppson (weapon test officer) said: "The use of the atomic weapon was a necessary moment in history. On the 60th anniversary of the bombing, the three surviving crew members of the Enola Gay - named after Tibbet's mother - said they had "no regrets". The five-ton "Little Boy" bomb was dropped on the morning of 6 August 1945, killing about 140,000 Japanese, with many more dying later. Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, aged 92. The commander of the B-29 plane that dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima in Japan, has died.