Studs Terkel interviews Paul Tibbetts

[AdamSmith]

Fascinating (if you grok this kind of thing) interview with the pilot of the Enola Gay:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/06/nuclear.japan

[TampaYankee]

Did these two come back from the other side just for this gig? I thought these guys were firmly entombed in history.

[AdamSmith]

I was rummaging in their archive. Byline date is Aug. 5, 2002.

[lookin]

'Fascinating' is one word, for sure. It doesn't take much for the human mind to distance itself from the thought that its owner just killed a hundred thousand people. I think I found about a half-dozen rationalizations, but it sounds like any one of them would have been sufficient.

'it's war'

'it saved lives'

'we didn't have to invade Japan'

'duty'

'defend the United States'

'following orders'

Not singling out this individual, as I believe that nearly all of us are capable of the same kind of rationalization and distancing from our fellow human beings.

That's the scary part.

[AdamSmith]

I remember being surprised to read in Richard Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb that Eisenhower, after hostilities in Europe had ended, advised against using the bomb on Japan.

In his memoirs President Dwight D. Eisenhower reports the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives..."

Eisenhower made similar private and public statements on numerous occasions. For instance, in a 1963 interview he said simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

Found the foregoing on the following site, which catalogs how many military officials were against it at the time:

http://www.colorado....0/atomicdec.htm

[lookin]

Found the foregoing on the following site, which catalogs how many military officials were against it at the time:

http://www.colorado....0/atomicdec.htm

Thanks for posting but, Lord, is it heartbreaking.

[AdamSmith]

More, if it can be borne: http://www.doug-long.com/index.htm

P.S. May have reported this before. I have a grim fascination with this whole business. In my personal archives I have a photograph of the Enola Gay autographed by the pilot, navigator, and bombardier. (Not especially rare; they, shudderingly?, signed a bunch of these at some point.) I also have, sealed under a glass dome, a little (1/2 x 1 inch) bit of 'Trinitite,' the blue-green glassy substance formed from the desert sand when the test bomb exploded at Alomogordo, the site of the 'Trinity' (so named by Oppenheimer: religious? Poetic -- Donne: 'Batter my heart, three-person'd God..."?) first a-bomb test.

[JKane]

I remember being surprised to read in Richard Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb that Eisenhower, after hostilities in Europe had ended, advised against using the bomb on Japan.

In his memoirs President Dwight D. Eisenhower reports the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives..."

Eisenhower made similar private and public statements on numerous occasions. For instance, in a 1963 interview he said simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

Found the foregoing on the following site, which catalogs how many military officials were against it at the time:

http://www.colorado....0/atomicdec.htm

My understanding is the Japanese had already offered 'terms', but we wanted them to fully surrender--except when they did we gave them the key thing they'd asked for, leaving the emperor alone!

The main theory I've read was that the primary strategic goal of the bombings were to warn Stalin, not defeat Japan.