Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the Hiroshima A Bomb pilot, then-Colonel (later Brigadier General) Paul Tibbets, Hiroshima, Japan

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The Hiroshima Tour Guides walk the Peace Park area of Hiroshima enthusiastically educating visitors about the need for the world to act to prevent nuclear proliferation as well as educating visitors about the history of the A Bomb dropped with such catastrophic effect on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945.

Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. (February 23, 1915 – November 1, 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force, best known for being the pilot of the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in the history of warfare. The bomb, code-named Little Boy, was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 after Tibbetts and crew had flown 2000km or for 6 hours from the Marianas Islands to complete their mission over Hiroshima.
Hiroshima was chosen over other cities primarily because it was thought that there were no POW camps in the city.
Tibbetts was highly regarded as a pilot and was involved in Project manhattan for some time before it unleashed the Uranium Bomb on Hiroshima and soon after,a Plutonium Bomb on Nagasaki.
Tibbetts retired from the U.S. Air Force on August 31, 1966 as a Brigadier General and a very well decorated serviceman.
During the 1960s, Tibbets was named military attaché to India, but this posting was rescinded after protests in India regarding Tibbets' role in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan.
He died at age 92 and claimed he never lost any sleep over his role in the Hiroshima A Bomb.

Some History from Wikipedia.
Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, threatening Japan with "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum, and the United States deployed two nuclear weapons developed by the Manhattan Project. American airmen dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by Fat Man over Nagasaki on 9 August.
Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000 –166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The Hiroshima prefecture health department estimated that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizeable garrison.
On 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September, officially ending World War II.

Taken in: 日本 / 広島県 / 広島市 (show map)

Taken on: February 28, 2013

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Hiroshima Peace Park « less

Sets appears in: • Japan 2010 and 1946

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