Tibbets: I’m delighted to be back

TINIAN—Paul Tibbets finally accomplished one of the many things he has been wanting to do: spend time with a small group of people in a faraway part of the Pacific, who knew a past too well, and let them see that he is a normal person, with eyes that see and recognize and a heart and soul that feel, respond, and understand.

Tibbets, the man who piloted the plane that dropped death on Hiroshima in 1945, indicated that he is not the devil reincarnate as some people may have thought of him.

“I’m delighted to be back here!” said the physically frail but highly spirited 89-year-old to hundreds of guests and residents Wednesday afternoon in a ceremony held at the site where his atomic bomb-carrying plane, Enola Gay, took off for Hiroshima at dawn on Aug. 6, 1945.

He could have been some place else but he chose to be in the Marianas at this time because “the people that live here have heard my name and heard something about me… I don’t want them to think that I’m someone with a horn on my head and a tail at my back.”

Prior to his arrival in the Commonwealth, Tibbets told media in Hawaii that he was unsure as to how he would be welcomed in the Northern Marianas.

Fully aware that people are curious to hear from him, Tibbets, who traveled to Saipan and Tinian with two other colleagues, Enola Gay navigator Theodore Van Kirk and weaponeer Morris Jeffson, took his time Wednesday, mustering all his strength to stand for about 30 minutes, before the crowd to tell them what happened on that unforgettable day in August 1945.

Tibbets said he has been briefed about the plan, popularly called the Manhattan Project, in reference to Tinian having a shape like Manhattan in New York, but “lots of seriousness of that didn’t really come home.”

“I had to get into the job and looked at what was going on and realized how serious it really was.”

He said the plane, loaded with the atomic bomb called Little Boy, left Tinian North Field past 2am, and the goal was to drop it on Hiroshima at 9:15am.

He said the plane did not depart Tinian until he got a final word from President Harry S. Truman, who at that time was having a meeting with Soviet Union president Joseph Stalin.

He said that the secret operation was actually covered by videos and pictorials by the U.S. military.

He recalled that at the dead of the night, he saw klieg lights all over the Tinian airport, trying to film his team’s every move until it accomplishes its mission. “The general wanted a pictorial of what happened,” he said.

Tibbets also praised Van Kirk for his exceptional navigational skills. “If you’re using computer now to think for you, he was my computer. Van Kirk gave me the time when to do things,” he said.

Tibbets said Enola Gay, which was actually named after his mother, was accompanied with two other planes, whose main objective was to document the trip.

He said everything “worked perfectly well”—good weather and all—unlike the second flight by another team, which dropped “Fat Man,” another atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki.

“It was calm. Nothing happened that was not supposed to happen,” he said.

He said the two escort planes left shortly before he dropped the bomb.

Although his group was ready to face the consequence of possibly not making it, he said that he knew what to do to be safe.

He said that Robert J. Oppenheimer, the physicist who made the bomb, told him that there was only one way to survive that mission: to turn either way 159 degree in no time—no more than 40 seconds.

However difficult, he managed to do it and before he knew it, he and his colleagues were back on Tinian.

He recalled seeing the whole sky in front of him lit up with the most amazing color of ocean blue, white, and purple.

“It’s the atmosphere reacting. It’s very colorful,” he said.

When they finally taxied on Tinian, he said they were instructed not to come out of plane immediately, fearing of the radiation’s impact on them.

After they were checked, he said they were only told to take a shower.

And he remembered Oppenheimer telling him, “Don’t worry about radiation.”

During his remarks, Tibbets repeatedly commended his team for the success of the entire mission. “ I had the best people…I never had any disciplinary problems with any of my men,” he said.

Tibbets concluded that accomplishing the mission was “a reward.”

“I’m proud of it.”