ENOLA GAY CREW: PAUL TIBBETS and GEORGE CARON
The pilot and tail gunner on the historic mission sign a photo of the mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima, a photograph taken by Caron.
Photograph signed: "George R. Caron/Hiroshima 8/6/45", "Col. Paul W. Tibbets - Pilot/Enola Gay 8/6/45". B/w, 8x10. PAUL W. TIBBETS (1915-2007) was the pilot and GEORGE R. CARON (1919-1995), the tail-gunner, of the Enola Gay (named after Tibbets' mother). On the morning of August 6, 1945, the specially modified B-29 bomber Enola Gay (named after Tibbets' mother) lifted off from Tinian Island; its special payload: "Little Boy," a 9,000 pound uranium-235 core-fissionable atomic bomb. At 8:16 a.m., the bomb (which descended from the plane by parachute) exploded 1,890 feet over Hiroshima, Japan's seventh largest city. Over 78,000 people were killed by the searing heat and gamma rays, and the city, which had been home to a garrison of 150,000 Japanese troops, was virtually destroyed. This action, and the dropping of another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days later, was credited with hastening the end of World War II. Seated in the rear of the B-29, Caron was the first to see the mushroom cloud. He had been given a camera at the last moment, and snapped a roll of photographs as the mushroom cloud ascended. His photographs of the explosion were printed on millions of leaflets that were dropped over Japan the next day. Fine condition.