Brigadier General Tibbets, pilot of Enola Gay, died 1/11/2007?

Question

During his lifetime, this man was directly responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. He caused anger in India when sent there as a military attaché, and caused anger and upset in Japan, after he re-enacted the bomb.

Was he just a serviceman doing his job, or was he one of those responsible for the single worst war time atrocity in history?

Where does the use of the a-bomb leave the west when we try to dictate who can and can't have nuclear weapons?

Why have we told other nations in times of conflict "following orders" is no defence (against claims of war crimes)?

Answer 1

He was just following orders ..
Anyway at the end of the day only god can judge him ..

Answer 2

Remember the dropping of the A Bomb, was another reason for the Impreial Dieat in Japan having a 50% split to end or continue the war. Yes the A Bomb was a nasty wepon, Paul Tibbets and the rest of the crew of the 3 planes had no real idea of what the wepon was, they knew it was special, they knew it was supposed to be devastating and special precautions to take place, but they had no real idea of what would happen. Only 1 previous wepon had been used in New Mexico and that was only witnessed by a few people.
Now we go to counter History, if the A Bomb had not been used during the war, what then? No one realised the problem of fall out by the bomb, or placed it low down the scale of problems it would cause. So like most military minded men in charge of the wepon believed we could survive a nuke war, the bomb was availiable for the Korean Conflict, in larger numbers and larger yeilds up to that Megaton wepon. So the Americans decide to Bomb the Northern approaches and stop the Chinese. Great, we now have a situation where 10 - 15 bombs at least are dropped, what do the soviets do? Nothing? possibly, something I expect, possibly even join the conflict, so the Americans start A Bombing the soviet forces, bingo world war 3.
Go forward another 10 years, the bombs where not used, where are we, Cuba, ok Nukes are being deployed in cuba, Americans go in to stop them, no one has used one, so not sure what damage may be caused, although since the H Bomb, people are more alert to destructive power. Again the Soviets retaliate and another Bang. there goes the planet....
Same could be said for Veitnam (America was extremley close to using TACTICAL Nukes against the trail).
Quite frankly if it had not been for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world would have been a lot closer to Nuclear exchange and the nightmare that brings, because no one really knew what would happen in a city that had been nuked.

Answer 3

I firmly believe that in order to give opinions in history matters, you must have read several history books. Not just pamphlets or periodicals. Ever heard of Olympic in the context of the situation mentioned in your question??. Have you read the estimates of casualties, military and civilian that the invasion of the Home Islands of Japan would have caused?. Remember, Tibbets was a soldier doing his duty, Truman was the man who ordered the bombings, and Truman was an AMERICAN president charged with the responsibility of the welfare of the American people foremost. And if that welfare meant that 1 Japanese life must end so that 10 American lives could go on, he didn't have a choice. Remember also, who was the aggressor, not only against the US but against China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Korea, etc. as well. Read about the behaviour of the Japanese in all the occupied territories. Read about the industrial methods of Japan to disseminate the fabrication of weapons and munitions in many places to reduce their vulnerability to destruction by the Americans.

READ FOR GODSAKE!!

Also: Tibbets and his crew were volunteers. They did what they did because in their conscience it was the right thing. They would never had claimed that they were ordered, as an excuse for their actions, as the Nazis did at Nurenberg. UNDERSTAND THEIR TIMES AND CIRCUMNSTANCES BEFORE PASSING EASY MISGUIDED JUDGEMENTS.
By the way, are you aware of the name Sweeney??

Answer 4

by the tone of your question you have already decided. "this man was directly responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children."

But you fail to mention the fact that by dropping the bombs Tibbets and the other airmen involved saved MILLIONS of lives. yes millions because all estimates point to millions of civilian and military casualties had the US invaded Japan.

Do you also realize that Japan slaughtered millions of people in china and throughout Asia? these were no innocent people just going out for a walk in the park. Both cities were major industrial or military targets.

Paul Tibbets is a Hero who risked his own life to save millions, he helped end the war years early and I can think of at least 3 people I know personally who's lives may have been saved by the dropping of those bombs.

Sorry if your liberal sentiments can not wrap it's self around hard facts.

Answer 5

That's a subjective question. Is he a criminal for following orders? No. However should he be considered evil for simply flying a plane?

Is he less evil than the members of the Manhattan project for researching and the later creation of the bombs?

Is he less evil than God for allowing mankind to do such things?

I don't think he's a criminal. In any case, I don't see the pilots of the planes firebombing Tokyo (which did infinitely more damage) being called evil. I see them being hailed as heroes.

Why is he any different? Because he had the misfortune of flying that B52 that carried a nuclear payload? If anything, I would say that it is not in him that you should place your anger over the nuclear age; it is to be placed in all of us for allowing ourselves to get to the point where we needed to annihilate each other using any means necessary.

Answer 6

Uh...to above answer...B-52 was not flown for at least 10 years later...LOL.
The fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden killed over 250,000 per incident SLOWLY as they BURNED TO DEATH. No crying there!
We could have lost over 1 million service men to invade Japan and some estimates that Japan would have lost MULTIPLES of that.
In my book, he was a hero that saved MILLIONS of lives, Him alone,,no, WE as a nation!!! He was a tool of Peace to the world.
We did not start that war, but given the alternatives, we won it the fastest and with least deaths possible.

Answer 7

He was doing his job that saved millions of lives on both sides.

Japan was set to fight to the bitter end or do you think it would have been far better more the millions more that would have die.

Talk about atrocities did you consider how many civilians Japan kill on the Battan Death March as acts of heroism?

Answer 8

He was just following his orders. If he hadn't flown the Enola Gay someone else would have. The responsibility for using atom bombs lies elsewhere.

Answer 9

Guy doing a job.How many soldiers lives did this save by ending the war!

Answer 10

He is a service man doing his job. If the bomb had not been dropped, WW2 would not have ended so quickly, more people would have died.