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The explosive material itself weighed less than 50 pounds, but it had the power of 40 millions pounds of TNT. It was their job to arm the bomb by inserting a slug of uranium and the conventional explosive charge into "Little Boy," as the 9,000-pound weapon was called. Secrecy was so tight, Tibbets said some of the crew on the Enola Gay had no idea what was in the bomb bay when the plane took off.
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"If I ran into trouble, such as a refusal to make available some needed service or equipment, I was authorized to break the impasse by use of a code word, "Silverplate," which would be recognized even by those with no knowledge of the project with which it was associated," Tibbets wrote. Army officials gave him the authority to get anything he needed to do the job. Tibbets' performance was so stellar he was chosen at age 29 to command the atomic bombing mission. He was sent back to the United States in 1943 to test Boeing's Super Fortress B-29, and spent about 1,000 hours flying it - more than any other pilot at the time. In 1942, as squadron commander of the 304th Bomb Squadron, Tibbets flew 25 bombing missions in B-17s against occupied Europe and led the first bombardment missions in support of the North African invasion.
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"The only thing I knew was that if something happens, I can handle it." He'd already given ample proof he knew how to handle a B-29. "Because if any mistakes were going to be made, they'd be made by me," Tibbets said.
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He could have assigned the flight to another pilot and stayed safely back at the group's base on Tinian Island, but he flew the mission personally. "We were determined to get that bomb on the target and have it explode like it was supposed to." Tibbets, then 30, was the colonel for the 509th Composite Group, with 15 B-29s and 1,800 men under his command. "It was damn serious business," Tibbets said. The shock was such that I don't remember what was said by me or my fellow crewmen at that moment, except that everyone reacted in stunned disbelief." It was a moment he'd been working toward for 11 months, Tibbets said Friday as he signed copies of his book at the 90th Bomb Group Reunion. Although briefed in advance on the potential effect of this incredible new weapon, I was unprepared for what I saw. "Awe and astonishment were my feelings as I viewed this scene. "I shall never forget the sight of that bright purple cloud boiling upward for 10 miles above a dying city, which was suddenly blanketed by an ugly mass of black smoke that resembled, more than anything else I can think of, a pot of bubbling hot tar," Tibbets wrote in "The Return of the Enola Gay," the book about his experiences. He was the pilot of the B-29 Superfortress Bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people in an instant. 6, 1945, Tibbets served as the midwife to history. A slim 86-year-old with a thick head of white hair, he looks no different from any of the other World War II veterans who attended the 90th Bomb Group Reunion at the Hyatt Regency.īut at 8:16 a.m. If you passed Paul Tibbets on the street in Greenville Thursday or Friday, you probably didn't look twice.