I would be most impressed by the man who says he was already armed with the facts revealed in this documentary. You will learn things.

Any discussion in this thread will avoid rehashing the decision to use these two bombs on Japan. I am of the opinion that the United States had no choice but to deploy these bombs, and on that particular point, that's all that will be said in this thread.

Excellent.

Yes, I learned several things that I never knew and a few that I learned were incorrect, now set straight.

I am grateful that we had such men with the fortitude to stay the course in such distressing a time.

Outstanding documentary!

On the way home from the NRA convention in Indianapolis in 2014, I sat next to and had a fascinating conversation Russell Gackenbach. He was the navigator on the camera plane, Necessary Evil, for the Hiroshima bombing and the navigator on the weather reconnaissance plane over Kokura, Enola Gay, for the second bombing.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with him:

Levy: Can you tell us now about the lead-up to the second mission, the Nagasaki mission? When did you find out that there would be a second atomic bombing mission?

Gackenbach: First of all, I don’t know what they told us, but you assume, since you were trained for special missions, that it was going to be another atomic bomb. As it turned out, my crew from the Up an’ Atom was selected to be the weather ship over Kokura, which was the target. Again, our regular plane was out of service, being checked over. We did fly, and I found Kokura. My navigation was correct for that day. That was always a relief, when you find your target.

The one plane out of—I’m trying to think of the name of the thing—was the Bockscar, was the one dropped. That mission had a few costly errors in it that affected our program, but did not affect my plane at all.

Levy: Which plane were you on for the Nagasaki mission?

Gackenbach: The Enola Gay.

Voices of the Manhattan Project

Look forward to watching the documentary. The incidental mention of "Indianapolis" in the post just above triggered my memory of the horrendous story of the USS Indianapolis after it had delivered the bomb(s) to Tinian.
Everything those days was done with such high stakes. Destroyers flung at Jap battleships to try to protect the Leyte invasion. Hundreds of lives lost on the Indianapolis because of poor communication. Cities destroyed with a single bomb unlike anything seen before. And the stakes again: a million GI's lives; many millions of Japanese lives. A heroic time. I pray we never see such another.

Thanks for posting. An excellent documentry. My dad was stationed at Tinian and flew many B29 missions over Japan.

Paul Tibbetts, command pilot of the Enola Gay, with his grandson Paul Tibbetts IV, B-2 bomber pilot, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, USAF. His grandfather had been commander of the 509th Composite Group.

The photo shows them piloting a restored B-29, the only time they flew together.

quote:

What do you think your grandfather would say about the bombings 75 years later?

He said many times that, on order from the president, they were given a mission that was expected to accelerate the end of World War II and save countless lives. It was their job to ensure its success. That type of mission had never been done before, and it required an enormous amount of teamwork—the military and political leadership, scientists, weapons experts, and the airmen who would ultimately maintain, load, and fly the aircraft. On this significant anniversary, I think he would say how proud he is of our men and women serving in the military today, who are carrying on the legacy of all who have served before them.

Link: Los Alamos National Laboratories

Very interesting. I never realized that the second mission was that much of a cluster f***. Sweeney sounds like a real clown. Surprising that Tibbets picked him, a guy with no combat experience, to command that mission.

Thanks for posting this. There were a number of details I hadn’t heard before.
My dad was about to start training as he was recovering from malaria, in the mountains of northern Luzon. He had been in the Pacific for a year and an half and always said he wouldn’t have survived the invasion, so I know what that means for me.
He was in the 32nd Division, Army and after the surrender they were sent to Japan to start the disarmament process, going to towns where the weapons were being gathered. They had anyone capable of carrying a weapon trained, including women and children.
They actually drove around the outskirts of Nagasaki in their travels and saw the destruction from a short distance.

The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War pod cast did some great episodes on this subject.