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Home » Uncategorized » BRIG GEN Paul Tibbets, RIP

BRIG GEN Paul Tibbets, RIP

From MSNBC arti­cle:
I knew when I got the assign­ment it was going to be an emo­tional thing, Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on Aug. 6, 2005, the 60th anniver­sary of the bomb. We had feel­ings, but we had to put them in the back­ground. We knew it was going to kill peo­ple right and left. But my one dri­ving inter­est was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as pos­si­ble.
Tibbets, then a 30-​​year-​​old colonel, never expressed regret over his 393-tibbets-enola-gay.jpgrole. He said it was his patri­otic duty and the right thing to do.
Im not proud that I killed 80,000 peo­ple, but Im proud that I was able to start with noth­ing, plan it and have it work as per­fectly as it did, he said in a 1975 inter­view.
Youve got to take stock and assess the sit­u­a­tion at that time. We were at war. … You use any­thing at your dis­posal.
He added: I sleep clearly every night.
From Air Force News Service:
BRIGADIER GENERAL PAUL W. TIBBETS JR.
Retired Sep. 1, 1966. Died Nov. 1, 2007.
General Tibbets was born in Quincy, Ill., in 1915. He grad­u­ated from Western Military Academy in Alton, Ill., in 1933, and later attended the University of Florida and the University of Cincinnati where he majored in chem­istry.
He entered the Army Air Corps on Feb. 25, 1937 at Fort Thomas, Ky. Immediately there­after, he entered fly­ing school at Randolph Field, and in February 1938 grad­u­ated from pilot school at Kelly Field, Texas. His first assign­ment was to Flight B, 16th Observation Squadron, Lawson Field, Fort Benning, Ga.
In April 1941, General Tibbets became group engi­neer­ing offi­cer of the 3d Attack Group, Hunter Air Force Base, Savannah, Ga. On Dec. 4, 1941, he received orders to join the 29th Bomb Group at MacDill Field; how­ever, before report­ing to MacDill he was placed on tem­po­rary duty to take 21 B-​​18s to Pope Field, Fort Bragg, N.C. to form an anti-​​submarine patrol. In February 1942, General Tibbets actu­ally reported for duty with the 29th Bomb Group at MacDill as engi­neer­ing offi­cer. After three weeks, he was made com­man­der of the 340th Bomb Squadron, 97th Bomb Group, which was formed from a cadre taken from the 29th Bomb Group. From February until June 1942, he was in train­ing for an over­seas movement.


In June 1942, he arrived in England and imme­di­ately went into com­bat oper­a­tions, fly­ing 25 com­bat mis­sions in B-​​17s, includ­ing the first American Flying Fortress raid against occu­pied Europe. In October 1942, the gen­eral was given the spe­cial assign­ment of fly­ing General Mark Clark to make his ren­dezvous with the French in prepa­ra­tion for the inva­sion of North Africa. Upon his return from this trip, he was retained to ferry General Eisenhower and his staff to Gibraltar on the night of the inva­sion. General Tibbets then flew General Clark to Algiers where General Clark took con­trol of the inva­sion forces.
For the next 30 days, General Tibbets con­ducted bom­bard­ment mis­sions in the North African area under the direct con­trol of the British, pend­ing build-​​up of the American bomber forces.
He led the first heavy bom­bard­ment mis­sion in sup­port of the inva­sion of North Africa. In November 1942, General Tibbets reverted to con­trol of the Twelfth Air Force and, with the arrival of the remain­der of the 97th Bomb Group, resumed nor­mal com­bat oper­a­tions in the Sahara Desert area. In January 1943, he was reas­signed to the Twelfth Air Force Headquarters at Algiers as assis­tant oper­a­tions offi­cer in charge of bomber oper­a­tions under Colonel (now General) Lauris Norstad.
In March 1943, he was returned to the United States for the pur­pose of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the B-​​29 pro­gram. This flight test work with the Boeing fac­tory and Air Materiel Command con­tin­ued until March 1944 at which time General Tibbets was trans­ferred to Grand Island, Neb., as direc­tor of oper­a­tions under General Frank Armstrong who started a B-​​29 instruc­tor tran­si­tion school. In September 1944, he was assigned to the Atomic Bomb Project as the Air Force offi­cer in charge of devel­op­ing an orga­ni­za­tion capa­ble of employ­ing the atomic bomb in com­bat oper­a­tions, and mat­ing the devel­op­ment of the bomb to the air­plane. In this func­tion, he was also charged with the flight test devel­op­ment of the atomic bomb itself. As these devel­op­ments pro­gressed, General Tibbets was fur­ther charged with the tac­ti­cal train­ing of bom­bard­ment orga­ni­za­tions and their deploy­ment into the com­bat the­ater of oper­a­tions. He flew the first atomic bomb mis­sion against enemy forces, drop­ping the bomb on Hiroshima.
With the end of the war in 1945, General Tibbets’ orga­ni­za­tion was trans­ferred to what is now Walker Air Force Base, Roswell, N.M., and remained there until August 1946. It was dur­ing this period that the Bikini Bomb Project took place, with General Tibbets par­tic­i­pat­ing as tech­ni­cal adviser to the Air Force com­man­der. He was then assigned to the Air Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., from which he grad­u­ated in 1947. His next assign­ment was to the Directorate of Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, where he sub­se­quently served as direc­tor of the Strategic Air Division.
In June 1950, General Tibbets was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and from July 1950 until February 1952, was B-​​47 project offi­cer at the Boeing Airplane Company, Wichita, Kan., where the ser­vice test of the B-​​47 to deter­mine its oper­a­tional suit­abil­ity took place. From February 1952 until August 1954, he was com­man­der of the Proof Test Division at Eglin Air Force Base. The gen­eral then received orders assign­ing him to the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, from which he grad­u­ated in June 1955. His next assign­ment was direc­tor of war plans, Allied Air Forces in Central Europe at Fontainebleau, France. In February 1956, he returned to the United States as com­man­der, 308th Bomb Wing, Hunter Air Force Base, Ga.
In January 1958, General Tibbets was reas­signed to MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., where he assumed com­mand of the 6th Air Division. He is a rated com­mand pilot.
In February 1961, General Tibbets was assigned to Headquarters U.S. Air Force as direc­tor of man­age­ment analy­sis (redes­ig­nated as Directorate of Status Analysis effec­tive March 27, 1961).
In July 1962, General Tibbets was assigned to the Joint Staff, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as deputy direc­tor for oper­a­tions, J-​​3. In June 1963, with reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the Operations Directorate, Joint Staff, General Tibbets became deputy direc­tor for the National Military Command System.

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November 1st, 2007 | Uncategorized | 263772 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2007/11/01/brig-gen-paul-tibbets-rip/BRIG+GEN+Paul+Tibbets%2C+RIP2007-11-01+15%3A45%3A32murdoc You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. Alistair says:
    November 2, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    Because of this mans mis­sion I was born, my father was in the Royal Air Force in the Far East and would not have been home if this war had not fin­ished.
    To accuse this of war crimes is a dis­grace, the peo­ple who have accussed him must remem­ber with­out peo­ple like him the Germans and Japanse would have won the war. In war you must go all out to win or you loss, somthing mod­ern times seems to have for­got.
    May you rest in peace, I hope you meet my dad up there, he will want to thank you for get­ting him home sooner, thats if he had sur­vided the war.

    Reply
  2. why says:
    November 2, 2007 at 3:10 pm

    “Why is a very clue­less indi­vid­ual. He judges with emo­tion, not logic“
    I use logic.
    BTW, I haven’t served because as a math­e­mati­cian I con­sider myself more use­full doing research.
    Axiom: Non-​​agression prin­ci­ple
    No one should start the use of force against peo­ple or prop­er­ties.
    If started, legit­i­mate defense is the response.
    Contracts as an inter­change of prop­er­ties should be enforced if not it would be con­sid­ered a theft.
    So, if the 80.000 inno­cents nuked hadn’t done any­thing to you, and you attacked them, you would be the one started the use of force.
    No emo­tions here.
    Now I want to know your logic.
    I want to know when it is ok to delib­er­ately kill inno­cents. Please explain it to me with logic no emotions.

    Reply
  3. 22lr says:
    November 2, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    “War is Hell” that is why, now please take your debate to a chat room or some­thing. A great American died and all you can do is debate on how bad you think his mis­sion was, dang dude you need to get out more.

    Reply
  4. Robert Fields says:
    November 2, 2007 at 4:18 pm

    Innocents? What is an inno­cent in Total War? Would the 30,000 work­ers build­ing war­ships in Mobile, AL be inno­cents or the thou­sands of work­ers build­ing heavy bombers in Detroit, MI.?
    Strategically, they are ever bit as impor­tant to the war effort as a Bomber Wing or an Army Corp.
    The “inno­cents” of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unfor­tu­nately, had the same strate­gic value to the Japanese as our American “inn­cents”!
    I really don’t know what a hero is, how­ever, I am lean­ing toward men that will­ingly gives their lives to save oth­ers. Tibbets was a clas­sic American. He was called upon to do a job, he did it with­out com­plain­ing, and came home when the job was done.
    I hope for our future’s sake that America will con­tinue to pro­duce such men.
    RIP General Tibbits

    Reply
  5. why says:
    November 2, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    “If you’re a math­e­mati­cian, I sus­pect you’re not a very good one. In your hypoth­e­sis, you’ve already pro­duced a triv­ial result by apply­ing incor­rect ini­tial and bound­ary con­di­tions to the prob­lem. You talk about “inno­cents”, yet numer­ous peo­ple have pointed out that you’ve mis­ap­plied the term. You talk about non-​​aggression, but ignore the broader con­text of WW2 and the his­tory of Japanese aggres­sion“
    You do not get it.
    When is it ok to nuke a city full of civil­ians?
    Should the occu­pied france had been nuked because there were some nazi tank divi­siones sta­tioned there? And so all the towns and cities in Europe?
    If there is a killer in a build­ing, would you sup­port nuk­ing the city, so the killer would not escape the police and kill again?
    If there is a kid­nap­per in a schoold? would you bomb it so the kid­nap­per won’t be able to escape and kill in the future?
    If the answer is no, why?
    Maybe because there are inno­cent peo­ple?
    So, the police in these cases try to save the inno­cents, while try­ing to catch the bad guys and its ok, but in the mil­i­tary case, you killed the inno­cents, so the bad guys do not escape, although you came all the way there to stop them killing inno­cents, and you achieve that killing inno­cents? That’s ilog­i­cal.
    The same way you could have nuked half Europe because there were panzer divi­sions sta­tioned there.
    Oh, you are going to say that you do num­bers and stadis­tics and then you decide.
    Tell us the magic num­ber, how many inno­cent civil­ians is ok to incin­er­ated to save the live of a U.S sol­dier? What’s the rate? When is it ok and when to much?
    The same ques­tion is crit­i­cal to law, how many inno­cents are you ready to send to jail so that a crim­i­nal does not get away? I’m for 0. You find another way. There are thing that should not be done, like tor­ture, like bomb­ing civil­ians.
    And you should know that.

    Reply
  6. Doug says:
    November 2, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    @WHY
    Read what Tibbets him­self said

    Reply
  7. Not says:
    November 2, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    Ignore “Why” and he’ll go away. He is like a shark, you feed him he mul­ti­plies. Stop feed­ing him, he’s too stu­pid to learn and too young to be edu­cated. He just loves to be the Devil.

    Reply
  8. 90sept says:
    November 2, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    in war you do what you have to
    the General is an amer­i­can hero

    Reply
  9. 90sept says:
    November 2, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    in war you do what you have to
    the General is an amer­i­can hero

    Reply
  10. Cris Inns says:
    November 3, 2007 at 1:06 am

    I don’t under­stand how the bomb­ing of Hiroshima could be regarded as any­thing other than a nec­es­sary, and regret­table, evil. But those were ugly times, with a dif­fer­ent mind­set, which I pray we do not see again. Paul Tibbets did what he had to do, in a calm, pro­fes­sional and dig­ni­fied man­ner which he retained to the end of his life. For that he does deserve the high­est praise.

    Reply
  11. Jay says:
    November 3, 2007 at 2:00 am

    In response to: (Posted by: why at November 2, 2007 04:52 PM)you asked the very impor­tant ques­tion “Tell us the magic num­ber, how many inno­cent civil­ians is ok to incin­er­ated to save the live of a U.S sol­dier? What’s the rate? When is it ok and when too much?” Well the “Magic Number” is HOWEVER MANY IT TAKES…all lives are pre­cious but American Lives are even more pre­cious — you fail to under­stand your his­tory in that the Japanese peo­ple were com­mit­ted to their war effort. The esti­mated 1 mil­lion American ser­vice­men who would have per­ished in the Japanese main­land inva­sion would likely have killed my grand­fa­ther and yours, thus elim­i­nat­ing our cur­rent debate. The attacks using nuclear devices were war­ranted because it saved count­less American sol­diers, and other Japanese civil­ian lives that would have been destroyed in the impend­ing inva­sion of Japan. War is harsh, so don’t start them…but when they are started WIN THEM, at all costs!

    Reply
  12. Eden Carroll-Weiss says:
    November 4, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    General Tibbets had in his life heard the crit­ics, we’ve always had them. But if he would have been torn in any­way about his duty, his job that had to be done then it would not have been suc­cess­ful. Who would have the Japanese attacked next? America. Our main­land American soil has never been attacked after the civil war. Because America has always had a strong defense and arms so destruc­tive no nation dared to attempt it. But America is chang­ing. Why? Because we have mem­bers of Congress lis­ten­ing to anti-​​Americans, anti-​​war activist and they’ve for­got­ten their his­tory. General Tibbets is a hero because he did his duty. Just like our young men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. May g0d bless them all.

    Reply
  13. Ruth Ann Wilson says:
    November 6, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    Honor to whom honor is due. Paul Tibbets was a great American sol­dier who did his duty to God and Country. On this Veterans Day, Nov.11, 2007 may this great man be remem­bered for his great feat dur­ing WWII. General Douglas MacArthur said, “Victory then Peace” and all the peo­ple said Amen.
    For God & Country
    Ruth Ann Wilson

    Reply
  14. nat says:
    November 8, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    i like pie

    Reply

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