Declassified B-29 Photos at Tinian

[browningautorifle]

Love those 360 views. A friend of mine is an engineer, though it was navy, and he'd love to go through that cockpit. I'm sure Harlan finds it fascinating too...with his past background.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

You bet it's fascinating to me Jim.

BTW, Paul Tibbets was a CAF member who was often at CAF HQ and you should have heard his responses to news people about if he had any regrets dropping the bomb.
The gentleman was sure feisty!

He also flew the CAF's B-29 which did a re-enactment of dropping the bomb which really upset some news people!

Attachment 60105Attachment 60106

[browningautorifle]

Tibbets was unrepentant to the end. All the poor hand wringing second guessers asked him if he was sorry about being there, but he was quite clear that he'd do it again. I don't know about the Wiki info, but it sure makes good reading...Paul Tibbets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Vincent]

Attachment 60107

Yes, Peter. It’s the real BOCKSCAR. The green bomb is a “Little Boy” uranium bomb.

[Peter Laidler]

What ever became of the other plane - was it enola something or other........

[Bob Womack]

Enola Gay is fully museum-restored and located in the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles Airport.

Bob

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Mr. Tibbets really did fly the CAF B-29 (FIFI) for years at our annual air shows. FIFI is the ONLY flying B-29 in the world now and for many, many years. The CAF saved her from extinction many years back.
It is SO wonderful to see her flying today after all of these many years.

My best friend from the CAF flew her for many years. David Hughes is a neighbor of mine here.

[TDH]

For many years the nose section of the Ruptured Duck, one of the B-25's on the Doolittle raid was at the Air Force museum at Wright Pat in Dayton.

[us019255]

On a similar note to Peter's post about the Dresden raid, periodically someone in the USA will lambaste Harry Truman for dropping the A bomb. I always wonder if they would have been willing to personally apologize to all the American mothers who would have lost sons in the planed invasion of Japan? I believe that the official estimate was 1 million casualties. I don't know the breakdown between injured and dead or if my memory is right.

[Bob Womack]

As of the last accounting I read, the armed services haven't minted any new Purple Heart medals since 1945. In preparation for mass casualties from Operation Downfall, the planned combined invasion of the islands of Japan, 500,000 Purple Heart medals were struck and those have been issued for all the intervening wars and conflicts. As of 2003 there were still 120,000 of those in stock. I understand that units going into Iraq and Afghanistan carried the medals for immediate award to soldiers in the field.

The estimates were 456,000 casualties, including 109,000 dead or missing for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu alone. Had an additional and subsequent invasion of Honshu (Operation Coronet) been necessary, the estimates moved up to 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities.

Bob