This was the first atomic bomb that was successfully dropped by the United States bomber Enola Gay on August 6, 1945, and it marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age. 1 Horror, destruction, and death rose over the city of Hiroshima. 'I had practically a Huckleberry Finn life type of thing,' he recalled. The city was hidden by that awful cloudboiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall.
He helped his father by rowing flats of coal up and down the Susquehanna River. But if anyone has one, I want to have one more than my enemy.'īorn in 1921, in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, Van Kirk was the son of a coalminer. I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world – I'd like to see them all abolished. 'And atomic weapons don't settle anything. 'The whole World War II experience shows that wars don't settle anything,' he said. Most of the lives saved were Japanese'.īut his exploits also made him wary of war. Our mission was to end the Second World War, simple as that.' He believed the bombings were necessary because they eliminated the need for an Allied land invasion that could have cost more lives: 'I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. 'I have never apologised for what we did to Hiroshima and I never will. He also autographed copies of his book 'The Return of the Enola Gay,' during a book-signing event in the. 'Do I regret what we did that day? No, sir, I do not,' Van Kirk said in 2010. Tibbets talks about his experience flying a B-29 Superfortress, known as the Enola Gay, and dropping the first atomic bomb used as a weapon during World War II.
