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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Paul Tibbets, the pilot and commander of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, died Thursday. He was 92.
Tibbets died at his Columbus, Ohio, home, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. Tibbets suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.
Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said.
Tibbets' historic mission in the plane Enola Gay, named for his mother, marked the beginning of the end of World War II. It was the first use of an atomic weapon in wartime.
The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the 5-ton "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and wounded countless others.
Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.
A-bomb pilot Paul Tibbets dies - CNN.com
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Tibbets died at his Columbus, Ohio, home, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. Tibbets suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.
Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said.
Tibbets' historic mission in the plane Enola Gay, named for his mother, marked the beginning of the end of World War II. It was the first use of an atomic weapon in wartime.
The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the 5-ton "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and wounded countless others.
Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.
A-bomb pilot Paul Tibbets dies - CNN.com
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Those two bombs saved millions of lives.
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