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Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, the navigator on the B29 Superfortress that dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, talks about the flight of the Enola Gay at his home in Stone Mountain, Ga., July 18, 2005. It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalled. Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned _ the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule.
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ENLARGE
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In this handout picture released by the U.S. Army, the plume of smoke from a mushroom cloud billow, about one hour after the nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. Two planes participated in this mission; the Enola Gay carried and dropped the weapon, and another was an escort. Estimates vary, but about 140,000 people are believed to have died in the nuclear blast. (AP Photo/U.S. Army via Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, HO)
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<i>EDITOR’S NOTE — Sixty years after the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, time has caught up with all but three of the 12 crew members. Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk and Morris “Dick” Jeppson looked back on those pivotal moments, while pilot Paul Tibbets declined to be interviewed, saying he’s told his story enough over the years.</i>
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — The military record of Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk gives only the slightest hint of his role in history: Fifty-eight missions in North Africa. One in the Pacific.
It was that single Pacific mission that forever altered the course of history and brought the world into the atomic age.
Van Kirk, then 24, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped “Little Boy” — the world’s first atomic bomb — over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalls. Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned — the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule. The 9,000-pound bomb fell down toward the city as the Enola Gay banked away, the crew hoping to escape with their lives.
Despite decades of controversy over whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb — which left some 140,000 dead in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later — Van Kirk remains convinced it was necessary because it shortened the war and relieved the Allies of having to mount a land invasion that might have cost far more lives on both sides.
“I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” the 84-year-old said from his suburban Atlanta retirement home near the base of Stone Mountain, where a large relief memorial carved out of the bare rock depicts Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
But Van Kirk’s experience has made him wary of war.
“The whole World War II experience shows that wars don’t settle anything. And atomic weapons don’t settle anything,” he said. “I personally think there shouldn’t be any atomic bombs in the world — I’d like to see them all abolished. But if anyone has one, I want to have one more than my enemy.”
The pilot, Col. Paul Tibbets, selected Van Kirk as his navigator because of his extensive experience in North Africa. He joined Tibbets’ fledgling 509th Composite Bomb Group — which now is the Air Force’s 509th Bomb Wing, the first B-2 Stealth bomber unit — for Special Mission No. 13. It was a secret mission that Tibbets said would end the war.
“I thought, ’I’ve heard that before, too,”’ Van Kirk recalled. “As it turned out, he was pretty correct.”
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — The military record of Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk gives only the slightest hint of his role in history: Fifty-eight missions in North Africa. One in the Pacific.
It was that single Pacific mission that forever altered the course of history and brought the world into the atomic age.
Van Kirk, then 24, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped “Little Boy” — the world’s first atomic bomb — over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalls. Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned — the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule. The 9,000-pound bomb fell down toward the city as the Enola Gay banked away, the crew hoping to escape with their lives.
Despite decades of controversy over whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb — which left some 140,000 dead in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later — Van Kirk remains convinced it was necessary because it shortened the war and relieved the Allies of having to mount a land invasion that might have cost far more lives on both sides.
“I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” the 84-year-old said from his suburban Atlanta retirement home near the base of Stone Mountain, where a large relief memorial carved out of the bare rock depicts Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
But Van Kirk’s experience has made him wary of war.
“The whole World War II experience shows that wars don’t settle anything. And atomic weapons don’t settle anything,” he said. “I personally think there shouldn’t be any atomic bombs in the world — I’d like to see them all abolished. But if anyone has one, I want to have one more than my enemy.”
The pilot, Col. Paul Tibbets, selected Van Kirk as his navigator because of his extensive experience in North Africa. He joined Tibbets’ fledgling 509th Composite Bomb Group — which now is the Air Force’s 509th Bomb Wing, the first B-2 Stealth bomber unit — for Special Mission No. 13. It was a secret mission that Tibbets said would end the war.
“I thought, ’I’ve heard that before, too,”’ Van Kirk recalled. “As it turned out, he was pretty correct.”
The mission: Fly 6 1/2 hours in a stripped-out bomber without guns or turrets from the Allied forward operating base at Tinian, in the Mariana Islands, to Hiroshima. Drop the “Little Boy” and run for your lives.
“The mission itself was very easy — it went exactly according to plan,” Van Kirk said.
The catch: It wasn’t known whether the bomb would actually work, or if it did, whether the bomb’s shockwaves would rip the Enola Gay (named after Tibbets’ mother) to pieces.
The crew thought about this after they unloaded the weapon over Hiroshima. One thousand one, one thousand two, they counted. They got up to 43 seconds — the time they were told the bomb would detonate — and still heard nothing.
“I think everybody in the plane concluded it was a dud. It seemed a lot longer than 43 seconds,” Van Kirk recalled.
Then came a bright flash. Then a shockwave. Then another shockwave.
Three days after Hiroshima, Nagasaki was bombed. Six days after that, Japan surrendered.
After the war ended, Van Kirk stayed on for a year to help the military with future atomic bomb tests. Then he went back to school, earned a degree in chemical engineering and signed on with DuPont, where he stayed until he retired in 1985. He recently moved to Georgia from California to be closer to his daughter.
Looking back, Van Kirk says he just did what all the other servicemen did during the war — help the country bring an end to it. And then he moved on.
“It’s a lot of fuss about nothing — I never expected to be around 60
years from then. It might have been important in world events, but I didn’t know it then,” he said. “The war was on — this was just the final act of the war to end the war.”
“The mission itself was very easy — it went exactly according to plan,” Van Kirk said.
The catch: It wasn’t known whether the bomb would actually work, or if it did, whether the bomb’s shockwaves would rip the Enola Gay (named after Tibbets’ mother) to pieces.
The crew thought about this after they unloaded the weapon over Hiroshima. One thousand one, one thousand two, they counted. They got up to 43 seconds — the time they were told the bomb would detonate — and still heard nothing.
“I think everybody in the plane concluded it was a dud. It seemed a lot longer than 43 seconds,” Van Kirk recalled.
Then came a bright flash. Then a shockwave. Then another shockwave.
Three days after Hiroshima, Nagasaki was bombed. Six days after that, Japan surrendered.
After the war ended, Van Kirk stayed on for a year to help the military with future atomic bomb tests. Then he went back to school, earned a degree in chemical engineering and signed on with DuPont, where he stayed until he retired in 1985. He recently moved to Georgia from California to be closer to his daughter.
Looking back, Van Kirk says he just did what all the other servicemen did during the war — help the country bring an end to it. And then he moved on.
“It’s a lot of fuss about nothing — I never expected to be around 60
years from then. It might have been important in world events, but I didn’t know it then,” he said. “The war was on — this was just the final act of the war to end the war.”
