Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

A-bomb pilot defends role

At a cocktail party at a Florida military base in the early 1960s, two old enemies who led World War II missions that changed the course of history met for the first time.

"I'm Fuchida -- let's talk about it," Japanese Self-Defense Force member Mitsuo Fuchida said, extending his hand to then-Base Commander Paul Tibbets, who knew exactly what "it" meant.

Though the names of American Army Air Force Brig. Gen. Tibbets and Japanese Naval Lt. Commander Fuchida are somewhat unknown to younger generations worldwide, they once were household names in their respective countries.

Tibbets was commander and pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, to hasten the end of the war.

Fuchida, who later would become an American citizen, led the devastating surprise Japanese air strike on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, which forced the neutral United States into the war.

"He was going to the University of Chicago at the time and had come to my base with a group of Japanese representatives to learn about weapons the United States government was going to give to Japan," said Tibbets, who was in Las Vegas this week.

"He was a nice-looking fella who spoke English very well."

The two men talked briefly about their roles in the war. Then, Fuchida said something that made Tibbets, who maintains he never lost a night's sleep over dropping the bomb, proud of his role in serving mankind.

"Fuchida told me that what I did was what I was supposed to do," said Tibbets, now 82 and retired in Columbus, Ohio. "He said 'the Japanese understand what you did more than Americans ever will.'"

The dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima -- a second bomb was dropped by a different American crew on Nagasaki three days later -- killed 70,000-100,000 Japanese and injured countless more.

However, some historians speculate that millions more lives on both sides would have been lost had the United States invaded Japan.

Also, the abrupt ending of the war brought an end to the god-like status of the Japanese emperor and resulted in the abandoning of the caste system, freeing thousands of serfs and other lower-caste Japanese people.

Tibbets, who was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, two years ago, flew 25 B-17 missions in World War II, including the first Flying Fortress raid against occupied Europe.

At age 29, he was put in charge of coordinating and training the crews that eventually would drop the A-bombs.

He retired from the military in 1965 and became president of an executive jet aircraft company.

For many years, Tibbets did not talk about his vital mission, preferring instead to put the war behind him and look ahead to new adventures.

However, with little taught in American high schools about the war and a lot of historical revisionism going on, he decided to go public and tell what he says is the true account of what took place.

As an example of the type of revisionism he despises, Tibbets points to the U.S. government backing off from issuing a postage stamp honoring the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb after the Japanese government protested it was insensitive.

"It (not issuing the stamp) was stupid -- stupid," he said. "Revisionists want to change everything. But you just can't change what happened."

The effort to spread that message brought Tibbets to Las Vegas Tuesday, where he made a personal appearance at an aviation art show at the Moonstruck Gallery at 6322 W. Sahara Ave.

"He is such a slice of history," said Sharon Schafer, president of the gallery, which began six years ago as a framing business. "It is such an honor to have a man like Gen. Tibbets visit us."

The aviation exhibit is in conjunction with the Air Force's 50th anniversary events in Las Vegas next week. The exhibit will be on display through May 3.

Occasionally, Tibbets still reflects with fondness on his meeting with Fuchida, who lived a most unusual version of the American dream.

Even before Pearl Harbor, Fuchida had logged more than 3,000 combat hours and was one of Japan's most experienced pilots.

Carrying out Commander Minoru Genda's carefully scripted attack on Pearl Harbor, a confident Fuchida radioed back to his superiors even before the American fleet at Pearl Harbor was decimated the prearranged victory signal: "Tora, tora, tora!" (Japanese for "Tiger, tiger, tiger!").

Sidelined with appendicitis for the battle of Midway, Fuchida watched the fray from a Japanese warship and suffered a broken leg when he leaped from the bridge as an American plane swooped down firing on the vessel.

After the war, Fuchida wrote extensively of his adventures, then converted to Christianity and became a Protestant minister, preaching in America, mostly to Japanese-Americans.

In 1966, the Japanese war hero became a U.S. citizen. He died in 1976 at age 74.

Appearing with Tibbets at Tuesday's event was Enola Gay historian George Hicks, who helped put together a video of surviving Enola Gay crew members. Just Tibbets and three others of the 14 are left, he said.

The documentary video, "Enola Gay: The First Atomic Mission," made by the Greenwich Workshop of Shelton, Conn., has been seen by more than 1.5 million people at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., but has never aired on an American network.

"One network official told me they did not want to offend their Japanese stockholders by airing it," Hicks said. "However, it has been broadcast on Japanese television."

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