Tibbets was told by scientists that the bomb would explode with the equivalent force of 20,000 tons of TNT. It was devastating to take a look at it," Tibbets, who was a 30-year-old colonel when he flew the plane (named in honor of his mother) at 31,000 feet, said during the interview. And where we had seen the city on the way in, I (now) saw nothing but a bunch of boiling debris with fire and smoke and all of that kind of stuff. "At the same time I felt the taste of lead in my mouth. We made our turn, we leveled out, and at the time that that happened I saw the sky in front of me light up brilliantly with all kinds of colors. Then, the next thing that happened, the bomb had left the air plane and we all went into a very steep turn - for an airplane of that size and weight in those days at that altitude in particular."Īsked what it felt like when the 5-ton bomb dropped out of the plane, Tibbets said: "The nose lurched up - I mean it lurched dramatically - because if you immediately let 10,000 pounds out of the front, the nose has got to fly up. "I gave them the countdown I did the seconds.
"We all got ready for the final bomb run," Tibbets told author Bob Greene on National Public Radio's Morning Edition during an interview on Aug. The historic mission was the first use of nuclear weaponry in war. The blast killed between 70,000 and 100,000 people and injured countless others. 6, 1945, when Tibbets flew the B-29 bomber Enola Gay over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and released a 10,000-pound atomic bomb dubbed "Little Boy." His confidant Gerry Newhouse explained that Tibbets had concerns that his detractors would protest at his gravesite. Tibbets' wishes were not to have a funeral or a headstone. Tibbets, who maintained that he didn't have any regrets about the World War II mission, had been in decline for months. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday at his home in Columbus, Ohio after suffering a number of health problems. Read a timeline of the World War II bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Fires were springing up everywhere amid a turbulent mass of smoke that had the appearance of bubbling hot tar.Paul Tibbets, who flew the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died after suffering a number of health problems. "It had already risen to a height of 45,000 feet, and was still boiling upward like something terribly alive," he wrote in his 1989 book, "Flight of the Enola Gay." "Even more fearsome was the sight on the ground below. Tibbets looked back to see an immense mushroom cloud. Robert Caron described the view as "a peep into hell."
The shock waves severely shook the retreating plane, but did not damage it. "My God, what have we done?" co-pilot Capt. Tibbets, who carried poison pills for the crew in case the B-29 went down, put the plane into a sharp, diving turn to speed away from the imminent explosion.Īt 8:16 a.m., 1,890 feet above the center of Hiroshima, the bomb detonated with a core temperature estimated at 50 million degrees. Seventeen seconds after 8:15 a.m., from 26,000 feet, the bombardier, Maj. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, lumbering under the load of the 9,700-pound bomb, struggled up off a runway on the island of Tinian for the 1,700-mile flight north to Hiroshima.