I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. In 2005, Van Kirk came as close as he ever got to regret.
I pray no man will have to witness that sight again. Such a terrible waste, such a loss of life. We unleashed the first atomic bomb, and I hope there will never be another. I pray that we have learned a lesson for all time. But I'm not sure that we have.Īfter the war, Van Kirk got a masters degree in chemical engineering and worked for DuPont until his retirement. Thomas Ferebee pushed the button that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. He slept in the plane both before and after he did his part.
He retired as a full Colonel.Ĭolonel Ferebee, who retired from the Air Force in 1970, always argued that the Hiroshima bomb was necessary.Īfter the war, Ferebee stayed with the Air Force, serving in the Strategic Air Command and in Vietnam. #The pilot of enola gay riding out of a shock full# "I'm convinced that the bombing saved many lives by ending the war," he told Newsweek magazine in 1970. That doesn't mean he had no opinion on the further use of such weapons. "Now we should look back and remember what just one bomb did, or two bombs," he told The Charlotte Observer in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. "Then I think we should realize that this can't happen again."Ĭolonel Ferebee died in Florida in 2000, at the age of 81. Lieutenant Jacob Beser, Electronic CountermeasuresĪrmy Air Force radar specialist Jacob Beser was the only man who served on both the Enola Gay in the Hiroshima bombing mission and the Bock's Car three days later when its crew bombed Nagasaki. He couldn't look at the detonation of the bombs because he was charged with monitoring for outside signals that could have detonated the bomb early and monitoring for signals of the proper detonation. This is addition for keeping an eye on radar for any enemy planes. In this 1985 interview for the Washington Post, Beser was asked if he would do it again. Given the same circumstances in the same kind of context, the answer is yes. However, you have to admit that the circumstances don't exist now. As far as our country was concerned, we were three years downstream in a war, going on four. The world had been at war, really, from the '30s in China, continuously, and millions and millions of people had been killed.
Add to that the deliberate killing that went on in Europe, it's kind of ludicrous to say well, geez, look at all those people that were instantly murdered. In November of 1945 there was an invasion of Japan planned. Three million men were gonna be thrown against Japan. There were about three million Japanese digging in for the defense of their homeland, and there was a casualty potential of over a million people. #The pilot of enola gay riding out of a shock full#.