Battles went on for months and were often fought hand-to-hand, with rifles, knives and flame throwers. One air battle was so lopsided in favor of the Americans that it was called a turkey shoot. Japanese suicide pilots crashed their planes into American vessels. Huge ships went to the bottom with their crews. Naval and air battles had been sudden, brief and deadly. The fighting on land, at sea and in the air had been savage. At the time of the Hiroshima bombing, an average of 5,000 were still dying each week. More than 100,000 American soldiers, sailors and Marines had already been killed in the Pacific since Japan’s attack on the U.S. (Matt McLain/The Washington Post) A shortened war, a dreadful cost This week, commemorations are scheduled across the country, with socially distanced candlelight vigils and the tolling of bells, and because of the covid-19, ceremonies and remembrances have moved online. It would be the start of a frightful era of weapons that could defy control and menace civilization.īut as “Dimples Eight Two” picked up speed that morning, its mission was born of its time: deliver a blow that the United States hoped might finally end the global butchery of World War II. Tens of thousands more would die the same way at Nagasaki a few days later, and the world would subsequently be hearing about megatons, mutual assured destruction, proliferation, nuclear winter, meltdowns and dirty bombs.
It was an important enemy military site with a wartime population about 280,000, according to the historians Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts.Īlmost half of them were about to be incinerated, crushed, and irradiated by the crude atomic weapon named “Little Boy” that the Enola Gay carried. (AP)įifteen hundred miles to the north-northwest, under a waning crescent moon, lay a 400-year-old Japanese city most Americans probably had never heard of but whose name was about to be etched into the pages of history. Shumard, assistant engineer and Staff Sgt. Jacob Besser, radar countermeasures officer. Tibbets, 509th Composite Group commanding officer and pilot Capt. John Porter, ground maintenance officer Capt. This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.This undated photo includes most members of 12-man crew of the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima posing in the Mariana Islands in 1945 during World War II. The logbook by the co-pilots of the Enola Gay sold at Christie's for $350,000 in 2002. Being that a later copy of Einstein's relativity manuscript, rewritten in his hand 40 years after the original, sold for over 5 million dollars, we feel this log also has an historic value. This one, here offered, is not the original log used on the plane, but a later handwritten version, also entirely in the hand of Dutch Van Kirk, with all the original entries of the original log. The original Enola Gay Log made on Augwas auctioned in 2007, with an estimate of $350,000 to $450,000. Dutch Van Kirk, Navigator Enola Gay 6 Aug. As you can see on the log, the atomic bomb was dropped at 9:15 AM, Tinian time when we were at an altitude of 31,060 feet over Hiroshima. The log served its purpose as we dropped the atomic bomb both on time and on target. The target was the Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima. The purpose of the log was to record flight data I used during the flight to keep the plane on course and on time. On the first of three pages, Van Kirk has written, "This Navigator's log has been filled out entirely in my own hand as I did during our historic flight over Hiroshima to drop the first Atomic Bomb on August 6, 1945. Van Kirk led the Enola Gay leftward on to a 345-degree heading and began the climb to 30,800 feet. Each page has successive entries from the time of take-off to the return to base. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Document Signed, “Dutch Van Kirk”, as Navigator - Enola Gay, 3 pp., in graphite, August 6, 1945, Hiroshima, 23” x 9”, being a navigator's log of the Enola Gay. Navigator’s Flight Log of the Enola Gay Atomic Bomb Mission to Hiroshima Entirely Filled Out in the Hand of Dutch Van KirkĮNOLA GAY.