Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets, Jr.
I will only be dealing with a limited slice of GEN Tibbets career as it relates to the military's atomic interests related to Tinian Island and Mission Bolero, and Mission Bolero II. For a full career profile - please refer to many expansive texts on his life and accomplishments, you can start at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tibbets
In March 1945, the 509th Composite Group had an authorized strength of 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men, almost all of whom deployed to Tinian, an island in the northern Marianas within striking distance of Japan, in May and June 1945. The 320th Troop Carrier Squadron kept its base of operations at Wendover. In addition to its authorized strength, the 509th had attached to it on Tinian all 51 civilian and military personnel of Project Alberta. Furthermore, two representatives from Washington, D.C. were present on the island:[38] the deputy director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell of the Military Policy Committee.
The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group received movement orders and moved by rail on April 26, 1945, to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington. On May 6 the support elements sailed on the SS Cape Victory for the Marianas, while the group's materiel was shipped on the SS Emile Berliner. An advance party of the air echelon flew by C-54 to North Field, Tinian, between May 15 and 22, where it was joined by the ground echelon on May 29, 1945.
Project Alberta's "Destination Team" also sent most of its members to Tinian to supervise the assembly, loading, and dropping of the bombs under the administrative title of 1st Technical Services Detachment, Miscellaneous War Department Group.
On August 5, 1945, Tibbets formally named his B-29 Enola Gay after his mother. Enola Gay had been personally selected by him while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. Martin Company plant in Bellevue, Nebraska. The regularly assigned aircraft commander, Robert A. Lewis, was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of August 6 to see the aircraft he considered his painted with the now-famous nose art. Lewis would fly the mission as Tibbets's co-pilot.
At 02:45 the next day, the Enola Gay departed North Field for Hiroshima, Japan, with Tibbets at the controls. Tinian was approximately 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away from Japan, so it took six hours to reach Hiroshima. The atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was dropped over Hiroshima at 08:15 local time. Tibbets recalled that the city was covered with a tall mushroom cloud after the bomb was dropped.
Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb, a 1980 made-for-television movie, somewhat fictionalized, told the story of Tibbets crew.
In March 1945, the 509th Composite Group had an authorized strength of 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men, almost all of whom deployed to Tinian, an island in the northern Marianas within striking distance of Japan, in May and June 1945. The 320th Troop Carrier Squadron kept its base of operations at Wendover. In addition to its authorized strength, the 509th had attached to it on Tinian all 51 civilian and military personnel of Project Alberta. Furthermore, two representatives from Washington, D.C. were present on the island:[38] the deputy director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell of the Military Policy Committee.
The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group received movement orders and moved by rail on April 26, 1945, to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington. On May 6 the support elements sailed on the SS Cape Victory for the Marianas, while the group's materiel was shipped on the SS Emile Berliner. An advance party of the air echelon flew by C-54 to North Field, Tinian, between May 15 and 22, where it was joined by the ground echelon on May 29, 1945.
Project Alberta's "Destination Team" also sent most of its members to Tinian to supervise the assembly, loading, and dropping of the bombs under the administrative title of 1st Technical Services Detachment, Miscellaneous War Department Group.
On August 5, 1945, Tibbets formally named his B-29 Enola Gay after his mother. Enola Gay had been personally selected by him while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. Martin Company plant in Bellevue, Nebraska. The regularly assigned aircraft commander, Robert A. Lewis, was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of August 6 to see the aircraft he considered his painted with the now-famous nose art. Lewis would fly the mission as Tibbets's co-pilot.
At 02:45 the next day, the Enola Gay departed North Field for Hiroshima, Japan, with Tibbets at the controls. Tinian was approximately 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away from Japan, so it took six hours to reach Hiroshima. The atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was dropped over Hiroshima at 08:15 local time. Tibbets recalled that the city was covered with a tall mushroom cloud after the bomb was dropped.
Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb, a 1980 made-for-television movie, somewhat fictionalized, told the story of Tibbets crew.
Operation BoleroOperation Bolero was the commonly used code name of the United States military troop buildup in Great Britain during World War II. "Bolero" was the code name used in official communications to stand in for "United Kingdom" when describing the theater or movements. Part of the plan called for the basing by April 1, 1943, of 21 heavy bomb groups (B-17 and B-24), 8 medium bomb groups (B-26 and B-25), 9 light bomb groups (A-20), 17 fighter groups (P-38, P-39, P-40, and P-47), 6 observation groups, and 8 transport groups--a total of 69 combat groups plus their service units.
The largest loss occurred July 15, 1942, when six P-38s of the 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, and two B-17s of the 97th Bomb Group, on the Greenland-to-Iceland leg, were forced by weather to attempt to return to Greenland. Running low on fuel, all eight force-landed on the Greenland ice cap. The aircraft, although apparently recoverable, were abandoned after all of their crews had been safely recovered. One of the P-38s, subsequently named Glacier Girl, was recovered from under ice in 1992, and has been restored to flying condition. |
Mission Bolero IIHonoring General Tibbets & Pat Epps for their accomplishments related to Operation Bolero and the rescue of a downed P-38, Glacier Girl
Operation Bolero II
Glacier Girl Heads To England To Complete Original Mission After 65 years -- including 50 years spent buried deep below the surface of a Greenland glacier -- the recovered and fully restored Lockheed P-38 now known as Glacier Girl is on her way to completing her interrupted World War II mission: Operation Bolero. |
Delivering The SmithsonianDuring Mission Bolero II, the Deputy Director of The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. Deputy Director Don Lopez, a WWII flying combat ace, personally selected two of my paintings for the permanent collection.
Victoria Moore w/ Deputy Director Don Lopez
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Superfortress
The B-29 Superfortress is a four-engine propeller-driven heavy bomber designed by Boeing that was flown primarily by the United States toward the end of World War II and during the Korean War. It was one of the largest aircraft to have seen service during World War II and a very advanced bomber for its time, with features such as a pressurized cabin, an electronic fire-control system, and a quartet of remote-controlled machine-gun turrets operated by the fire-control system in addition to its defensive tail gun installation. The name "Superfortress" was derived from that of its well-known predecessor, the B-17 Flying Fortress. Although designed as a high-altitude strategic bomber, and initially used in this role against the Empire of Japan, these attacks proved to be disappointing; as a result the B-29 became the primary aircraft used in the American firebombing campaign, and was used extensively in low-altitude night-time incendiary bombing missions. One of the B-29's final roles during World War II was carrying out the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
More info > |
Little Boy Atom Bomb
Little Boy was the codename for the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare. The Hiroshima bombing was the second artificial nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and the first uranium-based detonation. Approximately 600 to 860 milligrams (9.3 to 13.3 grains) of matter in the bomb were converted into the energy of heat and radiation. It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ).
Little Boy was developed by Lieutenant Commander Francis Birch's group of Captain William S. Parsons's Ordnance (O) Division at the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. Parsons flew on the Hiroshima mission as weaponeer. The Little Boy was a development of the unsuccessful Thin Man nuclear bomb. Like Thin Man, it was a gun-type fission weapon, but derived its explosive power from the nuclear fission of uranium-235. This was accomplished by shooting a hollow cylinder of uranium over another hollow enriched uranium cylinder by means of a charge of nitrocellulose propellant powder. It contained 64 kg (141 lb) of enriched uranium, of which less than a kilogram underwent nuclear fission. Its components were fabricated at three different plants so that no one would have a copy of the complete design. After the war ended, it was not expected that the inefficient Little Boy design would ever again be required, and many plans and diagrams were destroyed, but by mid-1946 the Hanford Site reactors were suffering badly from the Wigner effect, so six Little Boy assemblies were produced at Sandia Base. The Navy Bureau of Ordnance built another 25 Little Boy assemblies in 1947 for use by the nuclear-capable Lockheed P2V Neptune aircraft carrier aircraft. All the Little Boy units were withdrawn from service by the end of January 1951 More Info > . |
Fat Man Atom Bomb
"Fat Man" was the codename for the type of atomic bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945. It was the second of only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the first being Little Boy, and its detonation caused the third man-made nuclear explosion. It was dropped from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar, named after its pilot, Captain Frederick C. Bock. For the Fat Man mission, Bockscar was piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney.
The name Fat Man refers generically to the early design of the bomb, which was also known as the Mark III. Fat Man was an implosion-type nuclear weapon with a plutonium core. The first to be detonated was the Gadget, in the Trinity nuclear test, less than a month earlier on 16 July at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. This bomb was identical in most respects to the Fat Man used at Nagasaki. Two more Fat Man bombs were detonated during the Operation "Crossroads" nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946. Some 120 Fat Man units were produced between 1947 and 1949, when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb. The Fat Man was retired in 1950. More Info > |
