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Pilot who dropped atomic bomb on Hiroshima dies with no regrets
Last updated at 09:37am on 02.11.07The American pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb has died, aged 92 - with no regrets.
After a series of strokes and heart failure Paul Tibbets died at his home in Columbus, Ohio.
To his dying day, the experienced pilot insisted he never lost a single's night sleep over the apocalyptic mission and that his main concern was to do the "best job" he could.
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A man with no regrets: Paul Tibbetts with the B-29 bomber (named after his mother) he used to drop the atomic bomb
Tibbets, who had flown some of the first bombing missions over Germany during World War Two, dropped the bomb on Hiroshima from B-29 bomber Enola Gay on August 6 aged 30.
Nicknamed 'Little Boy' the bomb killed 78,000 people instantly but by the end of 1945 the death total had reached 140,000.
After the mission Mr Tibbets said: "If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified. The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire."
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The 'Little Boy' atomic bomb killed approximately 80,000 people instantly
While Tibbets never regretted the mission, he did not want a funeral or headstone erected over his grave for fears this would be a landmark for protestors.
He stated in an interview with newspaper the Columbus Dispatch in 1975: "I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did.
"You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. You use anything at your disposal."
He added: "I sleep clearly every night."
In a recent interview, Tibbets said: "We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background.
"My one concern was to do the best job I could so we could end the killing as quickly as possible."
He added, it was his patriotic duty - "to do the right thing".
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Before he died Tibbetts insisted he slept 'clearly every night'
Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born on February 23, 1915, in Quincy, Illinois, and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.
He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.
He became a brigadier general before leaving the military in 1966.
Later he became president of Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus-based international air-taxi service.
Tibbets will be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Engliash Channel, which he loved to fly over during the war.
Reader views (2)
Paul Tibbets was a very brave man. His actions served to reduce the number of Japanese civilian casualties from those that would have been caused by a land invasion. This was demonstrated by the number of casualties caused by the invasion of Okinawa. The Japanese government, even after that event, was in no mood to give up and was prepared to sacrifice its civilian population in resisting an attack on the main islands; far greater numbers would have suffered than those caused by the atomic bombs.
- Peter Haldane, London
He did his duty. Millions of American and Japanese lives were saved by the war ending in August 1945. Some not born at the time criticise Truman for using the A-bomb. Let them walk in his shoes.
- Phil Jones, London, UK
