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7.1 Distinguished Service Cross citation.
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After leaving the Air Force in 1966, he worked for Executive Jet Aviation, serving on the founding board and as its president from 1976 until his retirement in 1987. He commanded the 308th Bombardment Wing and 6th Air Division in the late 1950s, and was military attaché in India from 1964 to 1966. After the war, he participated in the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946, and was involved in the development of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet in the early 1950s. In September 1944, he was appointed the commander of the 509th Composite Group, which would conduct the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tibbets returned to the United States in February 1943 to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. After flying 43 combat missions, he became the assistant for bomber operations on the staff of the Twelfth Air Force. Tibbets was chosen to fly Major General Mark W. He flew the lead plane in the first American daylight heavy bomber mission against Occupied Europe on 17 August 1942, and the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe on 9 October 1942. In July 1942, the 97th became the first heavy bombardment group to be deployed as part of the Eighth Air Force, and Tibbets became deputy group commander. In February 1942, he became the commanding officer of the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group, which was equipped with the Boeing B-17. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he flew anti-submarine patrols over the Atlantic. Tibbets enlisted in the United States Army in 1937 and qualified as a pilot in 1938. He is best known as the aircraft captain who flew the B-29 Superfortress known as the Enola Gay (named after his mother) when it dropped a Little Boy, the first of two atomic bombs used in warfare, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. (23 February 1915 – 1 November 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and NagasakiĬharter Pilot and President of Executive Jet Aviation.Estimates range from 60,000 to 80,000 deaths immediately following the explosion, with many more later on due to exposure to radiation. A firestorm sprang up and spread the destruction to a radius of about three miles. The bomb’s explosion completely destroyed everything within a one-mile radius of the hypocenter. The bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy”, exploded at 1,900 feet above the city, and narrowly missed the target by approximately 800 feet. The bomb was dropped at approximately 8:15 AM over the Aioi Bridge, which was the intended target. Because of this determination, Tibbets was able to fly over the city with relative ease. It was assumed that these few planes, along with the weather scout plane were only on a reconnaissance mission, and people were not advised to seek bomb shelters (Trinity Atomic Web Site). When Enola Gay and the two accompanying planes approached the city, another air raid alert was sent out for many large cities, but the radar operator in Hiroshima determined that there were only a few planes approaching, the alert was canceled. Bomb warnings were sent out, but officials decided the coast was clear because the plane turned around after seeing clear weather conditions. Japanese radar operators first detected the weather scout plane over the city of Hiroshima. The planes flew separately on the mission, but rendezvoused at the island of Iwo Jima before heading towards the primary target of Hiroshima. Three other planes served as weather scouts for the cities of Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki. Colonel Paul Tibbets piloted the aircraft nicknamed Enola Gay, which was armed with the atomic bomb, while two other aircrafts were also involved in the mission and in charge of instrumentation and photography. On August 6, 1945, three B-29 bombers took off from Tinian, which is a small island in the Marianas.