Interview with Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets (USAF Ret.)

This interview would have had to take place before General Tibbets' death in November 2007.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.

You aren't really.

You mean that you would like this to be off the record?

I mean that as far as Paul W. Tibbets is concerned, this conversation is entirely in your head.

Of course, there's a sense in which everything takes place in our heads.

That's not the point here. We're talking about what is actually happening ... or rather not happening.

But you're real.

Of course.

And much of the story is real.

Parts of it, maybe.

Can you say something about which parts?

I'll admit that there were times reading what you sent that I could begin remembering that flight all over again: how it felt, and some of the things that were said. It's hard not to think of it all again. But it's just as clear to me that your bombardier isn't that much like the buddy I knew. And I don't remember him ever saying some of the things you say he might have said.

Like?

Well, of course, it's hard to remember now, but probably lots of things. Just for one stupid example, his singing "On a Wing and a Prayer" with Dutch Van Kirk and Sergeant Duzenbury.  That's just an example of the kind of thing that never happened.

You did have a conversation with the three of them about then in the flight?

I'm sure we did, but I can't remember everything we talked about.

But you do remember that they didn't sing?

Look, I told you there are lots of things a person can't remember. But I can't imagine him having some of those thoughts going through his head in the story. He wasn't like that. Loyalty was a big thing with him.

He sounds pretty loyal to me. That was part of his challenge.

But loyalty first. And a tough mutt. The story makes him sound ... too sensitive. He was a big, athletic, poker-playing son-of-a-bitch, and a hell of a bombardier—sort of your all-American kind of guy—if he did seem to be fond of the ladies, though that was true of most of them. But another thing I don't like is the suggestion that he could be the only one with a conscience about the bomb. The rest of us knew that a lot of people might die. We didn't know how many for sure and everything about the radiation then, but we weren't doing it because we hated the Japanese. We did it because we were ending the war and saving lives. Something people can easily forget today is how the Japanese warlords just wouldn't give up. They still claimed they were the aggrieved ones—fighting western imperialism and Russian communism. They thought it was more honorable to die fighting to the terrible end rather than to surrender. They didn't care how many of their own people would die. We dropped the first  atom bomb, and then the Nagasaki one, because we were ordered to do so. We probably would have used more if we had to, including on Tokyo. I know that Groves and Arnold and Spaatz had thought about that. It wasn't easy for me or anyone.

And you are proud of what you did?

Yes, I am. As you know, this whole matter came up again in that nasty flap at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum when they were getting ready to exhibit the Enola Gay. It was as though we were supposed to start feeling guilty about what we had done.  You do what you have to do for your country, and then half of them turn on you! For a while it seems like no one was listening. That 's why you have to keep repeating yourself. No, it wasn't easy.  But we were serving our country, and it was the right thing to do at the time. We ended a terrible war. Period. Exclamation point.

And you worked very hard to make the mission go right. You were in charge of the 393rd Heavy Bombardment Squadron and Operation Silverplate almost from the beginning.

I was in charge of the whole 509th Composite Group. I put it together, including flight-testing the new B-29s. Some people thought they were too dangerous to fly. The first test pilot was killed. I stepped in. And that was no accident. I had led the first  American raid in North Africa, flown Generals Clark and Eisenhower to the planning meeting in Gibraltar, flown the first B-17 across the Channel on a bombing raid, almost got my ass shot off a half-dozen times.

Did you think of yourself as a hero?

I thought of myself as the best and most experienced pilot around—somebody determined to get the mission done and mercifully end the bloodiest war in history.

Do you think of yourself as a hero now?

Why not? I wasn't the only one, but I was captain of the ship. In my mind I never did get all the credit I deserved—the medals maybe, but certainly not the promotions. But that's war and politics—especially military politics, LeMay and the others.

None of that had anything to do with the outcome of the mission that day?

The mission that day went perfectly— almost to the minute. It was exactly as I had scripted it. I reject any suggestion in the story you gave me that anyone would deliberately drop the bomb other than how it had been planned. No one thought about that.

Even if it would save thousands of lives while still letting the Japanese know we had the bomb?

I told you, no one thought about that. I've been quoted before on this. Nobody in my airplane had the least emotional problem or lost a night's sleep over the Hiroshima mission. However little we may have missed the target, in the end it didn't make that much difference with a bomb like that. You can't control everything.

If you don't mind my asking, how can you know for sure—what your crew were thinking?

I knew my men. I picked them.

What about Claude Eatherly?

He did a fine job piloting the Artiste. I don't know what happened to him later, but I'll tell you what I think. I'm afraid that business of his being so disturbed and guilty over the A-bombs could have been an attempt to cover up some run-of the-mill criminal activity. I was sorry about that, but since it's my turn here, let me tell you one thing I do know. The story does a disservice to the captain in charge of the bomb. As I recall, your story doesn't even have his name right. That officer was one of the most loyal, skilled and dedicated men I ever met, and I don't think you or your so-called friend could realize how high up and influential he was in the Manhattan Project. The scientists had the greatest respect for him and his abilities. I have never heard even a whisper of some of the things he is supposed to have said.

That's in the story. No one knew. At the time, few people knew that some of the scientists felt that way.

And for years afterward, he went around lecturing on why it was right to use those first  bombs and to further develop nuclear weaponry and energy.

That sometimes happens.

What?

That people who have had the most questions then become the most sure about what they've done.

Don't get me going. It's wrong, wrong, wrong, I tell you. A lot of historians have gotten it wrong too. People who weren't there and weren't part of it get a few facts straight and think they know what happened and why it happened. As far as I'm concerned, we did the right thing in the best way we could at the time, and that ought to be the end of it—the end of the story.

One thing everyone agrees on is that you did a terrific job in avoiding the effects of the blast.

Right. Thank you. We didn't know for sure what was going to happen. We might have been bounced out of the sky. For a few moments it felt like that. For a couple of seconds I thought it was flak hitting us.  Best maneuver I may ever have made, and I made a few. Of course, I practiced it.

And right at the very end? Is that actually what you heard?

It may have been something like that: Lewis, I think. I was concentrating on the controls. I'm not sure. I just wish they hadn't lost that recording Beser was making.

Anything you want to add now?

I'm tired, if you want to know the truth. I'm tired now of even talking about it. I'm lucky still to be alive. I'm practically the last one of us. But yes, there are at least a couple of things I think ought to be  changed if you're going to have other people read what you say this guy told you.

I'd be glad to hear them.

Not least his questions and any suggestion that he may have considered dropping it out over the bay.

How do you think it happened?

I just don't think he would have planned something like that. He never said a word about it. He got his medals too, after all, but no one suggested he was some special kind of American hero for it.

Maybe some people will think of him that way now. It has to have some effect on how we think about the first  bomb.

So you say. You have a way of twisting words. Whoever he was talking with you, maybe his memory was playing tricks on him or else you are playing tricks with memory. I don't think you can go back and change history. You ought to get that part right.

How do you think about the bomb now?

If you mean, do I wish there were no atomic or hydrogen bombs in the world, maybe I could wish for that. The night of the mission I wrote my mother telling her I was scared for my sons and for their world if the bomb we were dropping didn't somehow end war for all time.

You wrote that then?

Of course I did. A person didn't have to be some kind of prophet or genius to see the dangers ahead. We could end the world with them, and too many others have them now. Even Reagan wished that, didn't  he? Or I should say, especially Reagan.  He had a dream of getting rid of all nuclear weapons, ours included, though maybe he was kind of naïve.

Some people say the bombs are what have kept the peace.

But at a pretty high cost in terror. Once the Russians got the bomb ... I can still remember the day in 1949 we learned about that. Then they started building hundreds for our hundreds and then thousands with ICBMs having as many as ten Hiroshima-sized nukes on them.

Do you think that's the reason why we didn't use atom bombs against the North Koreans? Some say MacArthur wanted to.

Could have been. Maybe President Truman was having some second thoughts. Maybe he was more worried about hordes of Chinese coming across the Yalu. But later on, we came a lot closer than people realize to using them. And if you want someone to blame for that, you can blame big-stuff Lieutenant General Curtis B. LeMay for a lot of it. We had those B-52s flying around practicing red alerts loaded with all the bombs needed for a nuclear winter. That is one guy your story does have almost right. He was big on promoting his Strategic Air Command and his generalship. And maybe the Russian part of it isn't so scary any more, thanks to Reagan, but we're still relying on our nuclear arsenal as the final threat. You may not like it, but you can understand Israel wanting one too, and China and then India and Pakistan along with the Frogs and Brits and now North Korea and soon Iran and who knows who else? It may not be long before some Osama bin whoozits gets his terrorist hands on one.

That's a pretty dark scenario. Are you suggesting that it never should have been invented and used in the first place?

 I don't know how it could have been prevented. You know the Germans were trying to get one. I think we were right to at least let them know we had one. I wish we didn't have to use it, but it was the way we ended the war, though I don't blame somone for praying we didn't have to.

Do you pray about that?

It's just a figure of speech, but, sure, I can pray about that, though even God doesn't change history.

What did you think about his prayers? On that August sixth?

That's another thing that can't be that right. The buddy I knew wasn't that religious. At least he didn't talk that much about it. It's true that we all did go to Chaplain Downey's little prayer service. I can imagine that prayer is pretty much what he said, and that story about him praying with Cyprian when he was dying got to me. So I'll grant you that the real guy might have done more of that that I realized. Of course, we all prayed when we thought our number might be coming up. We just didn't talk about it very much.

So you can't know what was going through his head that morning?

Of course not. I'm just telling you that I knew the Gay's bombardier pretty well. I can't see him going on like that about some shining Jesus and being that pained about bombing civilian populations. I have a very hard time imaginging that could cause him to change any of his calculations with the Norden. He was too damned good with that thing and proud of it. The results of those Nordens were often pretty crappy, except for a guy like him.

But you said that you didn't know about the songs that could have been in his head either.

No. But no one knows everything that was in my head either. I certainly didn't like any suggestion that I would put my own position or careeer ahead of my men. I was the head of it, that's true, but I put together a great team and the team came first.

He thought that way too.

We all did.

But you did have a reputation for being a stickler--what people might today call a control-freak--and not being always easy to get along with.

Wrong agakn. I had more trouble with LeMay and Groves and the top dogs who thought they knew better than I did than with the men under me. I cared about details because lives and the mission depended on it. That was my job and most people appreciated it. That's one of the reasons that I don't believe that business of my being so fussy with the intercom and its click-clicking on and off so much. That makes me looks silly . . . frivolous and, believe me, there was nothing frivolous about that flight. I did, in fact, have those cyanide pills in my jacket in case we had to crash land, and that was a real possibility. You shouldn't forget that this was a mission of life and death for us. That part I remember all too well.

I read somewhere that your father was a strict disciplinairian who punished you when you broke the rules he set for you.

Not you too! I've had enough of people trying to psychologize me. "You did this because of that when you were little and how you got toilet trained" and blah blah blah. Well, that's nuts. My father was tough, all right--even mean as far as I'm concerned. But it made me tough, too, without being mean.

And you named the plane after your mother?

She was my sweetheart, all right. The only person who ever really understood me. I'll admit to having some second thought about naming the plane after her. At the time it seemed like a good idea with our being on such a noble mission for our country and for peace. But, look here, you've got your hero with a father practically out of commission, talking half the time about his grandfather and worrying about his wife while he can't seem to keep his pants zipped. Why don't you psychologize him? That would tell you why he would even think about disobeying orders and covering up a miscalculation. And why, anyway, should we believe anything he has to say--maybe just some old man trying to make himself feel better about his country and his own role in it--that sentimental journey crap?

A miscalculation that cound have made quite a difference. Did you know Angie?

No, I didn't know her. There were women like that aournd all right, while the best of us kept our minds on our mission. But I don't want to make her sound real either. The outlines of the story you've got may be right--maybe some of the details, but that's about it. The important thing is that we did drop the bomb, and it helped end what was probably the worst war in human history.

So--and this is a question I've been asking others--do you think he found some form of absolution and forgiveness for his part in dropping the bomb? Do you think he should?

What in the world is absolution? I doubt whether there can be any real forgivenes for the big mistakes we make in life. But as far as the bomb is concerned, I don't think any forgiveness is in order or needed. We all tried to do what we thought was right at the time. You can't ask any more of a human being. And thank God and for our country that we have had more brave and dedicated men willing to carry on the mission for peace and freedom in the world--other great airmen like my grandson.

Again, thanks for your time and thoughts.

You're welcome, but, remember, as far as I am concerned, a lot of this has come out of your head. Get that down too.