lifeofwylie

I am so sad to hear that Brigadier General Paul Tibbets Jr. has passed away. Most of us today owe our lives to this one man. General Tibbets is the leader and pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. And, yes, he saved millions of lives because of his sacrafice, skill and dedication to duty.

You don't have to look long on the internet to hear General Tibbets described by his peers as the best damn pilot they every new. He was the real deal. He said he never lost any sleep over dropping "the bomb." Thank god for him.

Once the war in Europe was over, most our troops were not going home. They were training and being prepared to get on board ships to participate in the invasion of Japan. Every Allied estimate said that the Japanese would never surrender and that we would have to prepare to loose a MILLION troops and see millions of Japanese (soliders and citizens) die.

The Japanese were warned and given the chance to surrender (a chance they never gave the Chinese ~ 300,000 men, women and childrend died were murdered in Nanking alone when the Japanese invaded) and turned it down. After the first bomb dropped the Japanese again refused to surrender, calculating that we could not have build more than one bomb.

If you have a grandparent or great grandparent who served in World War II you owe your life to General Tibbs and his 11 man crew:

Capt. Robert Lewis - copilot
Maj. Thomas Ferebee - bombardier
Capt. Theodore Van Kirk - navigator
Lt. Jacob Beser - radar countermeasures
Capt. William "Deak" Parsons - weaponeer
2nd Lt. Maurice Jeppson - assistant weaponeer
Sgt. Joe Stiborik - radar
Staff Sgt. George Caron - tail gunner
Sgt. Robert Shumard - asst. flight engineer
Pfc. Richard Nelson - radio
Tech Sgt. Wayne Duzenberry - flight engineer

May they all find peace.