NFT: Last surviving crewman of the Enola Gay passes away

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two things really stand out to me about that generation:

1. Work ethic. Not only working hard but taking pride in work itself.

2. Commitment to civic virtue and the common cause. Kids went to public schools, all classes fought in the army. There was a belief that one of the primary purposes of education was to make you a good citizen.

two things really stand out to me about that generation:

1. Work ethic. Not only working hard but taking pride in work itself.

2. Commitment to civic virtue and the common cause. Kids went to public schools, all classes fought in the army. There was a belief that one of the primary purposes of education was to make you a good citizen.

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of that generation. But like every other generation it wasn't without warts

And never apologized.

In comment 11786302 Nick from Goa said:

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Why wouldn't he be? The decision to drop the bomb was made by politicians, we could debate the wisdom or error of that until kingdom come...but imagine for a minute what it was like to be part of the crew that was given the job of doing it

In comment 11786373 schabadoo said:

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And never apologized.

Amen.

owes them a debt of gratitude....imagine a world today where the Axis are victorious......I can't even begin....would have they set foot on American soil?

deserve all the praise you have to give, but dropping nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan is a blight on our history.

In comment 11786464 Pork and Beans said:

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deserve all the praise you have to give, but dropping nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan is a blight on our history.

Debatable, and even if it was the guys who flew that mission (or any mission over Japan, where a fatal crash was probably preferable to the alternative) didn't make the policy decision to develop it or drop it.

...when I posted this a week or so ago, below is a link to an interview with my father in 1975. He talks about his experiences fighting the Japanese in WW2 and being there when the Indianapolis delivered Fat Man and Little Boy and when the Enola Gay took off to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. My father died in 1981.
Abe Chassman interview (1975) - ( New Window )

In comment 11786464 Pork and Beans said:

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deserve all the praise you have to give, but dropping nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan is a blight on our history.

Revisionist claptrap.

In comment 11786519 Dunedin81 said:

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In comment 11786464 Pork and Beans said: Quote: deserve all the praise you have to give, but dropping nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan is a blight on our history. Debatable, and even if it was the guys who flew that mission (or any mission over Japan, where a fatal crash was probably preferable to the alternative) didn't make the policy decision to develop it or drop it.

Bob Caron, one of the crewmembers, was a Brooklyn native and an alum of the HS I went to. I remember him coming to speak to us and mentioning that the mission was so secret that he wasn't aware of the goal/target until the plane was in the air. You'd have to go to great lengths to pin it on the crew at that point.

1,000,000 additional Japanese and Allied military and civilian casualties attendant to an invasion of Japan is a blight on our history.

Try putting the event in historical context.

We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb, the Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail.

What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

In comment 11786464 Pork and Beans said:

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deserve all the praise you have to give, but dropping nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan is a blight on our history.

Tough decision but the options:

Bombs: about 250,000 Japanese deaths

Invade Japan: estimated about 250,000-500,000 US deaths and 1 million+ Japanese deaths

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The Battle of Okinawa ran up 72,000 US casualties in 82 days, of whom 12,510 were killed or missing (this is conservative, because it excludes several thousand US soldiers who died after the battle indirectly, from their wounds.) The entire island of Okinawa is 464 sq mi (1,200 km2). If the US casualty rate during the invasion of Japan had been only 5% as high per unit area as it was at Okinawa, the US would still have lost 297,000 soldiers

To this day there are Purple Hearts in stock that were manufactured for the invasion of Japan.

because of the conventional weapons we were dropping (which were of course more destructive in terms of loss of life than the nukes) but we did not know that at the time. What we knew is that their soldiers were fighting to the death for ground that wasn't even historically "theirs".

Greg, I firmly believe that is the greatest monologue ever given in a movie.

how differently people view the concept of a "World War" among nation states today. Japan, as a nation down to its civilians, were at war against their enemies whether you like to accept that or not. Did they pick up a rifle and all fight? No, but they were behind the national war efforts through support of their war machine and their decision makers. So while loss of civilian lives should be avoided whenever possible, in such an all out war among nations, you make the difficult decision to achieve the most humane end even when the means isn't nearly so humane.

In comment 11786705 RC02XX said:

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So while loss of civilian lives should be avoided whenever possible, in such an all out war among nations, you make the difficult decision to achieve the most humane end even when the means isn't nearly so humane.

Very well put. War is by definition inhumane. Ending a war as quickly as possible is thus more humane.

In comment 11786705 RC02XX said:

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how differently people view the concept of a "World War" among nation states today. Japan, as a nation down to its civilians, were at war against their enemies whether you like to accept that or not. Did they pick up a rifle and all fight? No, but they were behind the national war efforts through support of their war machine and their decision makers. So while loss of civilian lives should be avoided whenever possible, in such an all out war among nations, you make the difficult decision to achieve the most humane end even when the means isn't nearly so humane.

This was basically the "Total War" concept that Nazi Germany espoused, although the Japanese seemed to implement it more comprehensively.

greatest generation stuff is overdone but there is no denying the sacrifies these guys went through to stop one of the greatest threats to world peace ever. And it is sad that we will soon see the day when no one who fought in this war will be around to tell their tales personally.

In comment 11786705 RC02XX said:

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how differently people view the concept of a "World War" among nation states today. Japan, as a nation down to its civilians, were at war against their enemies whether you like to accept that or not. Did they pick up a rifle and all fight? No, but they were behind the national war efforts through support of their war machine and their decision makers. So while loss of civilian lives should be avoided whenever possible, in such an all out war among nations, you make the difficult decision to achieve the most humane end even when the means isn't nearly so humane.

Attempts to humanize war have, generally speaking, been very positive, but in certain circumstances they have probably been counterproductive. "Modern war" and all the norms that attach has had more to do with the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict than any other one factor. And it is difficult to envision some of these conflicts spiraling out of control (Bosnia, even Rwanda) without ROE absorbed with what the peacekeepers would do and not what was going on around them.

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...but he got the date wrong. It wasn't June 29, it was July 29 or 30 (it was right around midnight).