Quote:
Originally posted by ANZAC:
end the war quickly by any means possible.
I think he may have a point.
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ANZAC, you just answered you own thread right there. My grandfather was a member of the U.S. 509th Composite Group and served under Col. Tibbets. He was in the second flight on its way to Tinian when the wars situation quickly deteriorated for the Japanese after the first bombing. It was his flight that perfected the means of how they actually dropped the "device" as they called it.
Procedure for the bomb run was: (1) drop the "device". (2)Once the "device leaves the aircraft, nose down 20 degrees. (3)Run up all four engines to full throttle, and (4)bank the wings at a 40 dergee angle to either side to get away from the area as quickly as possible. He told me that once the "device" went off you were 40 miles away from the epicenter.
I concurr with everything everyone else has stated, had we not dropped the "device" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki every mother and her son would have fanatically fought on the beaches to have kept the allies out of Japan. The when the estimated casualties list came up for debate and they saw that it was believed to be in the millions of GI's and Marines they decided to use the bomb as a more cohersive and quicker way of bringing them to their knees.
Besides Col. Tibbets has stated before that he aswell as many of other American servicemen of the time period looked at it not so much as part of their job but, more as a means of revenge for the attack on Pearl Harbor almost thee years before.
I think Col. Tibbets said it best for the American people, especially in this PC and liberal world that we unfortunately live in where our American servicemen and women can't do the job thoroughly enough because they have to worry about pissing someone off politically. It was Col. Tibbets that was once asked..."Col. Tibbets, don't you have any remorse for what you did by dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese people?"... he simply stated..."not in the least."
Regards,
MARNE