Volume 46 - No. 10
March 10, 2016
By Frederick Gomez
When we think of the greatest secret weapons of World War II we immediately think of the Manhattan Project which created the world’s first two atomic bombs (code names “Little Boy,” and “Fat Man,” respectively). These atomic bombs were, unquestionably, the mightiest and most lethal weapons unleased in human history, and their sudden appearance were like artificial suns exploding off the pages of Biblical “Revelations.” Their explosions mushroomed over 11 miles into the sky creating a seemingly unreal Armageddon image that – even in its aftermath – still could not be fully comprehended by scientists who witnessed the seemingly impossible splitting of the atom. The Little Boy – all 9,700 pounds of it — was the first super bomb to find its target on August 6, 1945 when it was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, erasing much of the landscape below. Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay airplane which carried the bomb, was quoted as saying, “As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear.” Sergeant Joseph Stiborik, radar operator on board, remembered how the crew was in shock and remained, mostly, in stunned silence on the return flight. The only words he recalled hearing were from co-pilot Lewis who uttered, “My God, what have we done?” Radarman, Stiborik, struggled later to find words, “I was dumbfounded. Remember, nobody had ever seen what an Abomb could do before. Here was a whole damn town nearly as big as Dallas, one minute all in good shape and the next minute disappeared and covered with fires and smoke” One account says there was an initial “burst of exhilaration” with some men remarking that the bomb would quickly end the war. But then talk seemed to evaporate quickly, giving way to shock, then stunned silence. It became difficult for the crewmen to truly comprehend the enormity of what just happened. No mortal could. After all, no human had ever before seen such unimaginable power. At the precise moment of explosion a blinding light filled the entire interior of the Enola Gay aircraft. As if caught in a bright prism of light, movement through time and space, suddenly, seemed unreal for the crewman on board, as they struggled to sort through a state of disbelief, and shock, of what they had just witnessed. Prior to the release of Little Boy from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress aircraft, navigator,
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Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, worked in synch with the plane’s bombardier (Tom Ferebee) to confirm winds and aimpoint. When the nearly 5-ton atom bomb dropped free, the Enola Gay suddenly lurched upwards making the Superfortress pilot, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., to send the plane into a 150-degree turn. As Tibbets would later elaborate, “We were just leveling out with throttles full forward when the bomb exploded at our back. All we saw was a bright flash like a photographer’s bulb going off in the aeroplane.” Within seconds, the first shock wave hit the plane. “There was a hell of a jolt! The sound was like the aeroplane being torn in half.” It wasn’t long when, “Shortly after, we got the second wave,” Tibbets would recall. “We turned to where we could look out and saw the cloud, where the city of Hiroshima had been.” Technical Sergeant, George R.
Caron, was the only photographer onboard the B-29 Enola Gay that historic day and the first to see the explosion. He was the tail gunner facing the rear of the B-29, giving him the vantage point of being the first man to witness the cataclysmic rise of a gigantic mushroom cloud that would level off at 60,000 feet. The mere image was terrifying just to behold. The Enola Gay flew full-throttle in the opposite direction using evasive action to desperately fly clear of the blast repercussions. The entire mission had been carefully planned. The B-29 was optimized to cruise at extremely high altitudes (for its time), thus minimizing or avoiding any reach by opposing Japanese fighter planes. Adding to its safety was the fact that Japan was in the rudimentary stages of radar, making the Superfortress virtually undetectable. All possibilities were weighed and addressed. In the
event of being shot down, the entire crew was told they, “were on their own.” Each of the elevenman crew was given a cyanide tablet in the event of capture. Other procedures were standard for the era: each crew member was allotted an evasion kit containing cloth maps that showed the best ground escape routes, as well as ‘Blood Chits,’ which were multi-lingual instructions stating, “I’m an American, help me escape and you’ll be rewarded.” The survival packages also included fishing and hunting gear, food rations, lengths of rope, first-aid kits, miniature compasses, flare guns, and gold coins to bribe one’s captors into helping them escape. In the specific case of the Enola Gay’s mission, they were also given highly-secret information of the locations of search-and-rescue teams which would be in the area. In regards to the Enola Gay’s flight-route, all allied aircraft
‘Secret Weapons of WWII’ Continued on Page 2