TINIAN, MARIANA ISLANDS, 1945
US Air Force Colonel Paul Tibbets waves from the cockpit of the B-29 bomber
Enola Gay
in the early hours of
6 August 1945. He’s about to fly the aircraft – named after his mother – to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where his crew will drop the first atomic bomb. Co-pilot Robert A Lewis was in disbelief after watching the explosion: “We saw the entire
city disappear… I wrote in my log, ‘My God,
what have we done?’” When asked years
later if he had any regrets, Tibbets was unequivocal: “I wouldn’t hesitate if I had the choice. I’d wipe ‘em out.”