Paul Tibbets, pilot of plane bombing on Hiroshima, dies at 92

Paul Tibbot piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. was born on February 23, 1915 – November 1, 2007.He was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force.He is best known for being the pilot of the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.

Tibbets was born in Quincy, Illinois. He was the son of Paul Warfield Tibbets and Enola Gay Tibbets (nee Haggard). He enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky on 25 February,1937. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1938 and received his wings at Kelly Field, Texas.

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay departed Tinian Island in the Marianas with Tibbets at the controls at 2:45 a.m. for Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bomb, codenamed Little Boy, was dropped over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time.

Hiroshima's radiation of the bombing on peoples were so intense that many thousands more have died from injuries or illness due to after effect of radiation. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki where 80 000 deaths were reported as in both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.

On August 15, 1945 Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2 which officially ended World War II. Furthermore, the experience of bombing led post-war Japan to adopt Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbid Japan from nuclear armament.