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Flew plane that dropped atomic bomb PAUL TIBBETS | 1915-2007:
PILOT OF ENOLA GAY | Native of Downstate Quincy never regretted mission over Hiroshima

November 2, 2007
BY JULIE CARR SMYTH

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Paul Tibbets, who etched his mother's name -- Enola Gay -- into history on the B-29 bomber he flew to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, died Thursday after six decades of steadfastly defending the mission. He was 92.

Mr. Tibbets died at his Columbus home. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

Mr. Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend.

Mr. Tibbets' historic mission marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.

The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton ''Little Boy'' bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people.

Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. Mr. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.

''I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing,'' Mr. Tibbets told the Columbus Dispatch for a story published on the 60th anniversary of the bombing. ''We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.''

Mr. Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.

''I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did,'' he said in a 1975 interview.

He added: ''I sleep clearly every night.''

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Downstate Quincy and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.

AP