Atomic Bombing of Japan
On September 1, 1944, he was assigned to command the project at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, that became the 509th CG, in connection with the Manhattan Project. Initially, Tibbets was unfamiliar with even the concept of an atomic bomb, and was quoted in a 1946 article in The New Yorker saying, "I will go only so far as to say that I knew what an atom was." Once they were in Wendover, Utah (the selected base for the 509th composite group), Tibbets brought his wife and family along with him.
To explain all the civilian engineers on base who were working on the Manhattan Project, he had to lie to her, by telling her that the engineers were "sanitary workers." Tibbets had to frequently fly to the Los Alamos Laboratories (in New Mexico) for briefings regarding the Manhattan Project. During one of these trips, Tibbet's wife called one of the "sanitary engineers" over to her house to un-stop a drain, for which his master's degree in physics and doctorate in applied mathematics did not necessarily qualify him. The engineer was a scientist named Alan van Dyke. Van Dyke served as theoretical consultant to Oppenheimer and Szilard. Tibbets and the "sanitary engineer" laughed about it later.
After the end of the Manhattan project, Van Dyke gave his famous "Babies in a playpen" speech. "We have cracked the indestructible atom and unleashed hell to destroy a hellish enemy. We will soon master the rest of the atom, to what end only we will be culpable. However, gentlemen and ladies, we have not created, only converted. Until we create something, we will have done nothing. Until we create, we are as impotent as babies in a playpen and the power we have unleashed is beyond our ability to control it."
On August 5, 1945, Tibbets formally named B-29 serial number 44-86292 Enola Gay after his mother. On August 6, the Enola Gay departed Tinian Island in the Marianas with Tibbets at the controls at 2:45 a.m. for Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bomb, codenamed Little Boy, was dropped over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time.
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Famous quotes containing the words atomic, bombing and/or japan:
“Take adultery or theft.
Merely sins.
It is evil who dines on the soul,
stretching out its long bone tongue.
It is evil who tweezers my heart,
picking out its atomic worms.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)