Bomb Tibbet example essay topic

Road to Eternity It was quite probably the most important event of World War II. Its consequences were greater than those of any other event of the war. On the morning of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay flew over the Japanese industrial city of Hiroshima and dropped the first atomic bomb through its hatches. The city went up in a fireball, causing destruction unlike anything the world had ever seen. The fact that it killed one hundred thousand people instantly made the atomic bomb known as an instrument of terrible destruction, the fact that it helped bring about the Japanese surrender and thus ended the Pacific war made the bomb an effective deterrent of war. Even now, after almost fifty years since the "nightmare", one only remembers the devastation after the A-bomb exploded, forgetting all the hard work it took to bring the remarkable weapon to life.

The story began when on August 2, 1939, a month before World War II began in Europe, Albert Einstein signed a letter addressed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Concede in careful terms, the letter stated that recent nuclear research indicated extremely powerful bombs of a new type, based on Uranium, might soon be possible. Einstein warned that the secret work with Uranium was going on in Nazi Germany. He urged that similar American research be accelerated. Roosevelt filled with fear that Nazi Germany would develop the bomb first, marked Einstein's letter for action. Eleven days after President Roosevelt authorized the go-ahead for the Manhattan project, the Japanese, too, without American knowledge, entered the race to develop an atomic bomb.

As the research for the first atomic bomb started, the military began its own preparation to use the atomic bomb. On Tuesday, August 29, 1944, General Barney Giles, assistant Chief of Air staff, decided that a well-respected Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbet should be awarded the honor of flying the first atomic mission. General Ent formally assigned the 393rd Heavy Bombardment Squadron, based in Nebraska, to Colonel Tibbet. Its fifteen bomber crews would provide the world's first atomic strike force capable of delivering nuclear bombs on Germany and Japan. Their training base was at Wendover, Utah and the code name this project was named "Silverplate". Tibbet was warned to commit as little as possible on paper and tell only those who needed to know to do their jobs properly.

If by any chance, Tibbet failed to obey his orders, he was to be court-martialed immediately. Tibbet though proud to be chosen for the job still could not resist accepting the fact that one bomb dropped from a single aircraft could equal the force of twenty thousand tons of high explosives. Ordinarily, some two thousand bombers would be required to deliver such a payload. [ Thomas 13 ] Tibbet, immediately after being briefed, arrived at Wendover along with his Heavy Bombardment Squadron.

The officers and men hated Wendover because they did not know why they were there. On just their second morning at the base, they awakened to find further cause for hatred. A formidable wire fence now penned them in and inside its perimeters were warning signs that mostly read "Restricted Area" or "Most Restricted". One of the most popular ones was a poem, which appropriately read: "What you see here, What you hear here, And when you leave here, Also leave IT here". (Herbert 30) Thickly coiled barbed wire barred the entrance to a number of hangars and workshops as well.

A week before the end of their training in Nebraska, the men of 393rd had been proud that their squadron's record was way above average. They had expected to go over seas soon, but instead the crew had been shuffled off to Wendover. There weren't even any bombers at Wendover, just a few rundown planes. Furthermore, by breakfast time, MPs were every where, their motorcycles and jeeps sent scuds of dust into the air which the 393rd had never tasted before. (Thomas 24) It permeated their clothes, skin, and the food as well. However, despite the difficulties the crew members faced, they constantly were pleaded by their senior officers to at least give "the place a chance".

But how could they? The security exceeded the limits. The Manhattan project agents attached to the base post office read even the letters written by the crew of 393rd. They would decide whether the letter sent did or did not contravene security. If it did not, the letter was allowed to be mailed. But if otherwise, the letter ended up on Major Uanna's desk, head of the security at Wendover, where watchful major made sure the writers were sufficiently scared by the time they left his office to be more careful in the future about what they wrote home.

Nonetheless a long day of work was well rewarded. The 393rd was the best fed-unit in the service. Tibbet was known to send a transport plane thousands of miles to collect cargo of tropical fruit. Fresh fish from New Orleans, Miami, and San Francisco were regular items on the menu. Tibbet not only served his men classy food, but also took care of his men other ways. For instance, whenever his men tangled with the police in Salt Lake city over traffic violations or rowdy behavior or for just getting involved with local married women, he intervened.

And therefore consequently these treats caused the 393rd to gradually become one of the most causally attired units in the Air Force or any other force for that matter. But this did not bother Tibbet for he made it clear that he was not overly concerned with smart salutes, knife-edged creases in khakis, or gleaming toecaps. All that concerned him was a man's capacity to work well. [Thomas 52] Tibbet's command over a period of several months had assumed impresser proportions. Besides the 393rd, he now had the 320th Troop Carrier Squadron, the 309th Air service Group, the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron, and the 1027th Air material Squadron. Between them they fetched, carried for, and served the 393rd.

To police them all was the 1395th military Police company who too was "supported" by some fifty agents from the Manhattan project. For Tibbet, this was too big of a burden to carry alone and so on December 17 these five squadrons at Wendover benumb formally unified under Tibbet as the 509th Composite group attached to the 315th Bombardment wing of the second Air Force. The group's strength was 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men. (Hales 151) At the Pentagon, the targets were now being discussed.

The military personal set out the governing factors in target selection for an atomic strike. They preferred the targets chosen to be places the bombing would most adversely affect the will of the Japanese people to continue the war. Beyond that, they must have been military in nature, consisting either of important headquarters or troop concentration, or centers of production of military equipment and supplies. Furthermore, to enable the military to assess accurately the effect of the bomb, the targets must not have been previously damaged by air attacks. It was also preferred that the first target be of such size that the damage confined within it would enable the U. S to more definitely determine the power of the bomb.

General Groves along with many more doubted if Tokyo would meet all the requirements. The likelihood was that the city would be heavily bombed in the coming months with conventional weapons. Personally, he favored Kyoto as a target. Kyoto was the ancient capital of Japan, a "historical city and one that was of great religious significance to the Japanese".

(Thomas 71-72) With an estimate population of a million, Kyoto, Groves reasoned, "like any city of that size in Japan must be involved in a tremendous amount of war work", (Thomas 72) and therefore it would make a legitimate target. However, later on June 12, Kyoto was forced off from the target list as a primary. Secretary of the war department disapproved the city because it was a historical city with great religious significance to the Japanese. Bombing the city would only strengthen the will of Japanese people and thus never ending the war. (Thomas 72) Several other Japanese cities were as well voted upon and had been reserved for possible atomic attack. They included Kokura, Hiroshima, and Niigata and as of June 12, these were the latest revised recommendations of the Target committee.

In making that selection, the committee had taken into account the "psychological factors"; it was deemed desirable to make the first use of the bomb "sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it was released". (Serber 136) Hiroshima had the advantage of being of such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains, a large fraction of the city might be destroyed. Back on the other hand, psychologically, Kyoto still was seen as the best target. It had the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. (Thomas 136-137) Now after lengthy discussions it was time for Tibbet to choose one of the four cities for an atomic strike. Tibbet with confidence delivered his judgement on the suitability of Hiroshima as a target.

He addressed Hiroshima as. ".. the various waterways give ideal condition. They allow for no chance for mistaking the city. Hiroshima can be approached from any direction for a perfect bombing run". In another words Tibbet preferred Hiroshima as a primary target. Though the target was indeed an important factor, the bigger predicament to be discussed, Tibbet thought was the likely prevailing weather conditions over all the targets. Air force, which Tibbet learned later, had already thought ahead and thus had been preparing summary charts of the conditions that could be expected in the coming months over Japan.

The data was based on information provided by the U.S. Weather Bureau and old weather maps from the marine observatory at Kobe for the period of 1927 to 1936. The prognosis was poor. From June to September there was a maximum of only six days a month when cloudiness was likely to be three-tenths or less. For this period, eight-tenths cloud was expected for at least eighteen days in any month.

The meteorologists then informed the Pentagon that between then and Christmas, August was probably the best time to drop the atomic bomb, "with the early part of the month offering marginally better weather conditions than the latter". (Stoff 68) Bad weather called for bombing by radar, but bombing by radar had been previously considered and rejected. After considerably study, experts had concluded that it is apparently quite possible to completely misinterpret the images on the radar screen; a section of rural Japan could be mistaken for a city. With radar bombing and a good operator, the chance of placing the bomb within a given 1,000 feet circle was about one percent to two percent. This figure took into account the fact that the probability of entirely missing the target area was from 70% to 50%.

By bombing visually, however, in a clear weather, the probability that a good bombardier could place the bomb within a given circle of one thousand feet radius lied between 20 to 50%. Tibbet's own bombardier was regularly dropping his practice bombs into a 300-foot circle. (Thomas 146) On July 8, 1944 Tibbet along side with his 509th composite group transferred to what was their final home. It was an island with a name "Tinian" in the Pacific which was only thirteen hundred miles from Japan. In the North field of the island were four parallel runways which made the island world's largest operational airfield. After arriving at the island on July 20, Tibbet chose ten crews to fly the first 509th missions over Japan.

He did not include himself for he had specific orders forbidding him to fly over the empire. The reason made perfect sense, the U.S. could not afford to allow Tibbet to fall into Japanese hands and jeopardize the entire project. And therefore Tibbet like a perfect gentleman respected his orders and stayed on the ground while his crewmember's gazed upon the empire like vultures searching for food. The purpose of these drills was to accustom the flies to combat and the Japanese to seeing single high-flying aircraft that dropped only one bomb. The men had orders that if their given targets were weather-bound, they must under no circumstances drop their blockbusters on Hiroshima, Koto, Kokura, or Niigata. Other than those cities, the crew's choice of alternative targets was unrestricted.

The first of the B-29's took off from Titian at 2: 00 a.m. while rest followed. On the way to Japan, one of them had engine trouble and had to jettison its bomb in the sea, five managed to drop their blockbusters in or around their target areas, and four found the weather so bad that they were forced to seek alternative targets. (Stoff 186) Back in Washington D. C, President Truman was now finally intending to tell Stalin, Russian leader, about the weapon, although he planned to "withhold all details", and just merely divulge the simple fact that the United States and Britain had developed a "massive" bomb. Stalin didn't seem, to the surprise of the allies' leader, too interested or shocked. The cause behind Stalin's strange behavior was that he was already knowledgeable of the bomb before its allies even considered allowing Stalin to legally peek inside their secret. The Russians had planted highly professional espionage ring and a traitor, David Green glass, inside Los Alamos Air force base.

(Stoff 212) Gr nglass evidently had traded one of his country's most top secret and crucial information for lousy few hundred dollars. United States still unaware of other nation's progress continued to develop their "secret" mission. On the other side of the room, the Air Chief was suggesting that in place of the historical Kyoto, Nagasaki should be considered one of the potential targets. This was the first time the city had been earmarked for possible atomic destruction. At that time Nagasaki was refused since it held American prisoners of war within its borders. Hiroshima, according to prisoners of war reports was the only one of the four target cities for "Centerboard" (code name for the mission to drop the bomb) that did not contain allied prisoners-of-war camps.

Hiroshima, therefore was then moved to the top of the target list. At Tinian the back-up plans were being prepared. It had been decided that if for any reason the atomic bomb-carrying plane developed a serious malfunction on the outward leg of its journey, it should land on Iwo Jima. It was better to put at risk the few thousand U. S servicemen stationed there than twenty thousand on Tinian, not to mention Tinian's second priceless piece of ordnance, the Plutonium bomb. On August 1, Tibbet drafted the top-secret order for the first atomic attack in history. The order specified that a total of seven B-29's would be used to complete the historic mission.

One would be needed at Iwo Jima to serve as the standby aircraft, three would fly well ahead of the bomb-carrying plane; one to each of the potential target cities to appraise the local weather and to relay the information back to bomb-carrier, and finally two observer planes accompanied by the bomb-carrying aircraft. (Thomas 217) The final approach to the mission was accelerating. On August 3, General Curtis Lemay, Chief of Strategic Air force flew into Tinian with the order for special Bomber mission No. 13. It was essentially the same document Tibbet had drafted the morning of August 1 with a number of details added. The strike was set for August 6.

The targets were Hiroshima urban industrial area as primary, Kokura arsenal and city as secondary, and Nagasaki urban area as tertiary. The order also confirmed that no friendly aircraft other than those listed would be within a fifty-mile area of any of the targets for this strike during a period of four hours prior to and six subsequent to strike time. (Stoff 225) Shortly somewhere around 3: 00 p.m. on August 4, the 509th's briefing hut was packed. The hushed murmuring in the room ceased as Tibbet announced the targets in order of priority, starting with Hiroshima, then Kokura, and Nagasaki.

He thereupon assigned three B-29's to serve as weather scouts. Eatherly's Straight Flush would go to Hiroshima, Jab bit, commanded by Major John Wilson, would fly to Kokura, and The Full House, piloted by Major Ralph Taylor was given Nagasaki. (Stoff 226) Sweeny's Great Artiste and No. 91, commanded by Major George Marquardt, would carry photographic equipment and accompany Tibbet to the actual target whose final selection would still depend on the weather reports radioed back by the scouting B-29's. If all three cities were ruled out by weather conditions, the plane, after disarming the bomb in the air would return to Iwo Jima. The seventh B-29, Top Secret, commanded by Captain Charles Mcknight, was assigned to fly to Iwo Jima and park on the guarded apron by the specially constructed pit. Tibbet, keeping lips air sealed of what the bomb was, told the men that "the bomb you are going to drop is something new in the history of warfare.

It is the most destructive weapon ever produced. We think it will knock out almost everything within a three-mile area". (227) Not mentioning anything further about the weapon, Tibbet then gave details of the route to be taken to Japan, the altitude along various stages of the flight, the bombing height, and the likely take off time: the early hours of Monday, August 6. [Thomas 227-228] Day before the "big moment", the crew practiced along the coast of Tinian with a test sample similar to the atomic bomb only without any explosives. Test bomb was designed so that the scientists could make sure that when dropped from high altitude, the bomb would still explode. In order for this test run to signify that everything had gone according to plan, the bomb was to emit a slight puff of smoke at 1,850 feet instead of the actual explosive.

Through binoculars scientists anxiously watched for any signs of smoke, but were disappointed when the test bomb plunged smokeless, past the planned height of detonation and into the ocean. There was devastation as one scientist described his feelings, "Great, just great", and then continued", tomorrow we are going to drop one of these on Japan, and we still haven't got this damn thing right". (221) With such a new, complex bomb, the chances of success were little; everybody predicted the bomb Tibbet was to drop the next day would be a "dud". (Thomas 221) At 3: 30 p. m., a group of scientists, MPs, and the security agents assembled around the atomic bomb that was now resting on a trolley. On a signal from Major Uanna, after he had carefully draped the bomb with a Tarpaulin, the trolley was hooked to a tractor, pulled slowly out of the hut, and escorted out of the tech area. Looking to some observers like a military funeral cortege, the trolley and its guards traveled a half-mile down to asphalt to the Enola Gay.

The weapon was then lifted up into the plane's front bomb bay and clamped to its special hook. The fifteen-foot doors banged shut. (Thomas 258) At 7: 30 p. m., Classes, the 509th deputy commander, following instructions from Tibbet, briefed dozen ground officers on their various duties between then and take off. They were to escort scientists and key military personnel to "safe" areas that was well away from North field; there was to be no chance of loosing irreplaceable atomic experts in an unscheduled nuclear explosion. But when the time came, many of the scientists refused to budge pointing out that almost nowhere on Tinian would be safe if an accident occurred. To prevent this accident from happening, five trucks were to be stationed every fifty feet down the sides of runway A (the North field airstrip selected for takeoff).

Flight surgeon Young was instructed that in the event of a crash, his rescue team would not touch anything until a specially detailed Squad tested the crash area for radioactive contamination. It was the first and only leak Young would receive that the weapon was an atomic bomb. During the night of August 5 and 6, some of the crewmen lay on their bunks and thought of their loved ones, became a little maudlin, and drowned their homesickness with some shots of whiskey. The night was sleepless, at 11: 30 p. m., the crew of the three planes went to their final briefing. First, the weather officers stepped forward and gave the forecast and informed that the route to Japan would be almost cloud-free, with only moderate winds and early clouds over the target cities which were likely to clear by dawn. The communications officer then read out the frequencies to be used on various stages of the mission and gave the positions of rescue ships and planes.

After the briefing, at 1: 37, the silent night at Tinian awakened to the sound of roaring engines of three weather planes taking off simultaneously, each from a separate runway. Shortly afterwards, at 1: 51 a. m., "Top Secret" air borned, and at 2: 45 a. m., the Enola Gay began to roll down the runway and then noisily took off along with "Greek Artiste" and "No. 91". Now all three weather-scout planes and three combat planes of special bombing mission No. 13 were airborne and headed on course and on time for Japan. [Serber 296] Precisely at 6: 30 a. m., Japanese time, Tibbet switched on the intercom and announced the basis of the bomb they carried.

The crew though shocked blocked out the disturbing news and continued their journey over the Pacific; they were turning towards their final run. Soon after, at 8: 15: 17, two hours later, Enola Gay's bomb bay doors snapped open and the world's first atomic bomb dropped clear of its restring hook. The Enola Gay, suddenly over four and a half time lighter lurched upwards, Tibbet immediately swung the Enola Gay into a diving right-hand turn and headed home. The bomb's detonator activated at 1,890 feet above ground and exactly at 8: 16 a.m. Forty three seconds after falling from the Enola Gay, and having traveled nearly six miles, the atomic bomb missed the Aio i bridge (the planned target) by eight hundred feet and exploded directly over Dr. Shima's clinic. (Thomas 258) The city went up in flames, destroying just about everything in its path.

Hiroshima along with the crew of 509th composite group at that historic point guaranteed a page for themselves in the history books. On August 9, another nuclear bomb was dropped, but this time on the port city of Nagasaki. Many more bombs were being readied, but President Truman gave orders to halt the attacks, saying he didn't like the killings of "all those kids". In the face of die-hard military opposition at home, Emperor Hirohito forced the issue of surrender and acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

"I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any longer", he said, "ending the war is the only way to relieve the nation from the terrible distress with which it is burdened... The time has come when we must bear the unbearable". (Thomas 323) The war was over. American celebrated August 14 as Victory over Japan day (VJ-Day), church bells rang, jubilant crowds danced in the streets, fireworks filled the skies, and war weary citizens from New York to San Francisco greeted the peace with flourish of uncorked energy. As Americans celebrated, the Japanese grieved for a nation defeated in war and for two cities sacrificed for the cause of peace..