Godspeed.
He was at the crossroads of history again and again. When Ike flew from London to Gibraltar to head the liberation of North Africa, it was Tibbets who flew the plane. The Red Gremlin suffered difficulties, but managed to get to the ground in one piece.
I suppose tomorrow’s blog post is obvious.
He was the pilot but the bombadier would be the person who ‘dropped’ the bomb. (wouldn’t it)
Certainly it was Tibbet’s mission.
Wow. I just read your link and what struck me was that he flew in 1927, at age 12, throwing Baby Ruth candy bars to the crowds at Hileah race track in FL. I just spent some time the last week looking for the early history of the “Baby Ruth” candy bar(it came up in Elendil’s Heir’s History Quiz thread).
I know, boring…
Another link to World War II has been erased. I’m proud that of the Americans like Mr. Tibbets that fought for the Allied Forces. I’m sure there are hundreds of other pilots that would have taken his place at the yoke of the Enola Gay that morning of August 6, 1945.
I’ve always thought it would be terrible to be ‘That Guy’. Tibbets retired from the Air Force in 1966 and avoided publicity for most of the rest of his life. In a 2000 interview he said he didn’t want a funeral or a marker and that if possible he wanted his ashes to be scattered over the North Atlantic, as some of the most peaceful times of his life were wwhen he was flying over it.