Pilot of plane that bombed Hiroshima dies - NBC News However, he attended for only a year and a half as he changed his mind about wanting to become a doctor. Born on 1 November 2007, the United States Air Force pilot Paul Tibbets was arguably the worlds most influential social media star. [63] Tibbets was a technical advisor to the 1946 Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, but he and his Enola Gay crew were not chosen to drop another atomic bomb. Popularly known as the United States Air Force pilot of United States of America. As a boy he was very interested in flying. He was the Deputy Director for Nuclear Operations in the Global Operations Directorate of the United States Strategic Command, where he was responsible for the nuclear mission of the nation's ballistic missile submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers. Just after 8.15am Japanese time, on August 6 1945, six miles above Hiroshima, a Boeing B29 bomber, the Enola Gay, commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, who has died aged 92, carried out the. According to the orders received in December 1941, Tibbets joined the 29th Bombardment Group at MacDill Field, Florida, and took training on the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.. At the time, he thought to himself, "People are getting killed down there that don't have any business getting killed. Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill. and spent most of his boyhood in Miami. In February 1943, Tibbets returned to the United States to help with the development of the B-29 Superfortress bomber. In 1927, when he was 12 years old, he flew in a plane piloted by barnstormer Doug Davis, dropping candy bars with tiny parachutes to the crowd of people attending the races at the Hialeah Park Race Track. As such, he was responsible for America's strategic nuclear forces. [8][60][72], Tibbets' grandson Paul W. Tibbets IV graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1989, and in April 2006 became commander of the 393rd Bomb Squadron, flying the B-2 Spirit at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. He was the pilot of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. He is from USA. He was a colonel in the United States Army Reserve and worked as a hospital pharmacist. [10] While there he was promoted to captain. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., Pilot of Enola Gay, Dies at 92 He graduated from Western Military Academy in Alton, Ill., in 1933, and later attended the University of Florida and the . [8][76] He was survived by his French-born wife, Andrea,[77] and two sons from his first marriage, Paul III and Gene as well as his son, James, from his second marriage. Courtesy of the Joseph Papalia Collection. He served for a year as a consultant before his second and final retirement from EJA in 1987. Now in Montgomery with his wife, son Gene Tibbets recalls the turmoil that followed the explosion. It was a passion of mine to serve. Died Nov. 1, 2007.General Tibbets was born in Quincy, Ill., in 1915. [19] On 9 October 1942, Tibbets led the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe, attacking industrial targets in the French city of Lille.