ENOLA GAY CREW: PAUL W. TIBBETS, JR., THEODORE VAN KIRK and THOMAS FEREBEE
Photograph signed: "Theodore J Van Kirk/Navigator", "Paul W. Tibbets/Pilot" and "Thomas W. Ferebee/Bombardier". B/w, 9¼x7¼. Just before 3 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, with Colonel PAUL W. TIBBETS, JR. at the controls, thundered into the darkness from a runway on Tinian Island. On board, the navigator, Captain THEODORE "DUTCH" VAN KIRK (1921-2014), kept the plane on course for its primary target: Hiroshima, Japan. At 8:15:17 a.m., the bombardier, Major THOMAS "TOM" FEREBEE, released America's new top-secret-weapon, the atomic bomb named "Little Boy". Tibbets then put the B-29 into a sharp 150-degree turn away from Ground Zero. All 12 crewmen wore specially-coated welder's goggles to protect them from the blinding flash. Exactly 43 seconds later, over 139,000 Japanese were killed or injured as a mushroom cloud engulfed Hiroshima. This attack, in combination with a second atomic assault on Nagasaki three days later, convinced the Japanese to surrender, ending WWII (1939-1945). Tibbets' mission represented the culmination of the Manhattan Project, a five-year nationwide research effort examining military applications for atomic fission. He had begun preparing for the mission in September 1944 by combining five squadrons into the secretive 509th Composite Group. Almost a year alter, the Project successfully detonated the first atomic weapon at Alamogordo, New Mexico. Tibbets received his fateful order to proceed two weeks later. Fine condition. Framed in the Gallery of History style: 35x18.