Yet in Hiroshima the effects had already been devastating as thousands of people were instantly carbonised in a blast a thousand times hotter than the sun's surface Around 80,000 died instantly, while the final toll climbed to 200,000. It never came as it would take a second atomic bomb, delivered by a different crew over the town of Nagasaki, before Japan finally surrendered. The crew listened to the radio for the entire six-hour journey back to base, waiting for the announcement that Japan had surrendered. "Later, our radio operator Dick Nelson said something like, 'We know this war is over.' We couldn't see how the Japanese would continue fighting after the power we had unleashed." "The cloud looked like a cauldron of boiling oil and we could see fires at the periphery," says Dutch. Below, Hiroshima was covered in thick smoke, making it difficult to see the impact. "It knocked you out of your seat and sounded like the plane had snapped in two."Īs Enola Gay banked away the crew could see a large mushroom cloud climbing above them, to 45,000ft. "We got slammed by about 3.5Gs with the first jolt," says Dutch. Then tail gunner Bob Caron shouted in terror as a fast-rising wall of air travelled towards them at the speed of sound.
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And worse than that, an intact atomic bomb would have landed right in the middle of Japan, that they could have then used to develop their own weapon."ĭutch says there was a blinding flash of light as the bomb exploded. "But honestly, my biggest fear was that it would fail to detonate and all our efforts would have been in vain. You could guess how they would have treated us. I couldn't imagine anything worse than having to ball out over Japan after what we did to their city. "We had also been warned that we had to be 11 miles from the blast site, or the shock waves would tear apart the plane. Some scientists predicted the explosion would set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere that could destroy the entire world. "But there were also concerns about what would happen when it did. "When the bomb went off, my first reaction was, 'Thank God it worked'," said Dutch.
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He also knew that if the bomb exploded, wiping out the entire city, there was a risk it would take Enola Gay with it. He knew that if nothing happened after 43 seconds, the detonator had failed to go off. Dutch remembers studying his watch as it plunged earthwards, about to cause the most devastating explosion man had ever created. They had a pretty name for the 8,900lb bomb too. Then just after 8.15am pilot Paul Tibbet threw the Enola Gay - named after his own mother - into a terrifying diving turn over Hiroshima. The morning was crisp and bright as they taxied along the runway on the tiny Pacific island of Tinian. He recalls how the night before they dropped the bomb the crew had calmed their nerves by playing poker until 2am, when it was time to leave. The only man alive who knows how it feels to kill so many in an instant. And it upsets him that all his comrades who flew on Enola Gay on August 6, 1945, have now gone. He won't be attending any more anniversary events. Today Dutch lives on an estate for the elderly near Atlanta, Georgia, battling health problems and grumbling he can't play golf any more. Not only to save American lives, but Japanese lives as well." "They had been taught to fight to the last man and they would have fought us with sticks and stones. We would have had to invade the country and the death toll would have been truly unimaginable. "If we had not dropped that bomb, there is no way the Japanese would have surrendered. Our mission was to end the Second World War, simple as that.
"I have never apologised for what we did to Hiroshima and I never will. "Do I regret what we did that day? No, sir, I do not," he says. Yet 89-year-old Dutch, the last remaining survivor of Enola Gay's flight crew, has never had any doubts that it was the right thing to do. More than 200,00 people were killed when the world's first atomic bomb exploded. Yet 65 years ago this Friday Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk took part in a mission which changed the world forever.ĭutch was the navigator on Enola Gay, guiding the B-29 Superfortress bomber to a point 31,000ft above Hiroshima to deliver the deadliest weapon man had ever built. He is now a frail old man who spends his days tending his roses.