Tibbits Tidbit
Paul Tibbits died at 92. Who is that, you ask? The pilot of the Enola Gay (named after his mother), whose plane dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Such death and destruction is not to be celebrated, but he is owed our gratitude. One need only look at the battle for Okinawa, seeing Japanese civilians throwing themselves from cliffs to die before being taken captive and 'eaten by the Americans', and Japanese soldiers fighting to the death, to appreciate what an invasion of the Japanese Mainland would have cost this country in lives. . . .hundreds of thousands by many estimates.
Today, men like Tibbits are scorned and protested. We see articles and shows that evoke sympathy for the 'victims' of this attack and the one on Nakasaki, with little balance to show the ruthlessness and horror of the Imperial Japanese Regime. In fact "because he feared giving protesters a place to demonstrate, Tibbets did not want a funeral or headstone".
My father was a naval officer on the USS Currituck in WWII. He was stationed in the Pacific. Had the war gone on, he might not have survived it, and the laws of probability would thus not favor my birth. He saw what the Tokyo Regime was about. . . . captured pilots of the PBY's that saved downed pilots were usually recovered minus their heads.
Dad is 92. Tibbits was 92. Thanks Paul.
Such death and destruction is not to be celebrated, but he is owed our gratitude. One need only look at the battle for Okinawa, seeing Japanese civilians throwing themselves from cliffs to die before being taken captive and 'eaten by the Americans', and Japanese soldiers fighting to the death, to appreciate what an invasion of the Japanese Mainland would have cost this country in lives. . . .hundreds of thousands by many estimates.
Today, men like Tibbits are scorned and protested. We see articles and shows that evoke sympathy for the 'victims' of this attack and the one on Nakasaki, with little balance to show the ruthlessness and horror of the Imperial Japanese Regime. In fact "because he feared giving protesters a place to demonstrate, Tibbets did not want a funeral or headstone".
My father was a naval officer on the USS Currituck in WWII. He was stationed in the Pacific. Had the war gone on, he might not have survived it, and the laws of probability would thus not favor my birth. He saw what the Tokyo Regime was about. . . . captured pilots of the PBY's that saved downed pilots were usually recovered minus their heads.
Dad is 92. Tibbits was 92. Thanks Paul.
posted by stewdog | 7:18 AM | Permalink
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1 comments
1 Comments:
Thanks, Stewdog. I saw this news yesterday and meant to post something about it.
I am so grateful to Paul Tibbets, to your father, and to all the men who answered the call of duty in that historical moment. I think it goes without saying that anyone who is cowardly enough to deface Tibbets' headstone would be unlikely to answer a similar call in our own time.
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