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And atomic weapons don’t settle anything,’ he said. ‘The whole World War II experience shows that wars don’t settle anything.
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Most of the lives saved were Japanese,’ VanKirk said. ‘I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. VanKirk told the AP he thought it was necessary because it shortened the war and eliminated the need for an Allied land invasion that could have cost more lives on both sides. Whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb has been debated endlessly. Six days after the Nagasaki bombing, Japan surrendered. The blast and its aftermath claimed 80,000 lives. Only four members of the Enola Gay crew are still living: Tibbets, navigator Ted Van Kirk, weapons officer Morris Jeppson and radio operator Richard Nelson.Three days after Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
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His survivors include his wife, Mary Ann Conrad Ferebee, and four sons. After two years of flying school in the Army Air Corps, he was assigned to be a bombardier.
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His decorations included the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Bronze Star.Ī native of Mocksville, N.C., Ferebee wanted to be a professional baseball player as a youth but joined the Army in 1940. He flew aboard B-47s during the Cold War and B-52s as an observer during the Vietnam War. I wanted the bomb to work and end the war.”Īfter World War II, Ferebee served as a deputy commander for maintenance in several B-47 Stratojet bomber wings. “People have to go back and study the history of the war and the attitude of the people at that time,” he said. “I’m sorry an awful lot of people died from that bomb, and I hate to think that something like that had to happen to end the war,” he said on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Years later, Ferebee said he never felt guilty about dropping the bomb but felt regret about the death toll. Japan surrendered five days after that, on Aug. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb took 43 seconds to fall and make its mark on history. Ferebee, then 26 and a veteran of 64 combat missions, slept most of the way to Hiroshima and didn’t hear Tibbets explain to the rest of the crew what they were carrying. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay took off for a 13-hour flight to Japan with the first nuclear weapon ever deployed. Paul Tibbets, served with Ferebee in the European campaign, handpicked him for his crew and called him “the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bomb site.” bombing raid on Nazi-occupied France in 1942 and was the lead bombardier for the Allies’ first 100-plane daylight raid in Europe. In addition to the Hiroshima attack, Ferebee was along on the first U.S. He was 81.Ī career Air Force officer who retired as a colonel in 1970, Ferebee participated in a number of historic bombing runs during the war, first in North Africa, then in Europe and finally the Pacific. Thomas Wilson Ferebee, the bombardier in the crew of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War II, died Thursday in Windermere, Fla.