"Things were very, very quiet," Gackenbach says. The plane circled twice around the mushroom cloud and then turned to head home. He got out of his seat, quickly picked up his camera and took two photographs out the navigator's side window. The first thing Gackenbach saw was a blinding light and then the start of a mushroom cloud. Then, the radio went dead: that was the signal from the Enola Gay that the bomb had been released. "We were not told anything about the cloud, just don't go through it."Īs they made their final approach to Hiroshima, they were flying 30,000 feet over the city. "We were told that once the explosion occurred, we should not look directly at it, that we should not go through the cloud," he says. Gackenbach was part of the 10-man crew that flew on the Necessary Evil. The atomic bomb explosion photographed from 30,000 feet over Hiroshima on Aug.
They had different engines, fewer guns and a larger bomb bay. Their planes were reconfigured B-29 Superfortress bombers. The 509th Composite Group, lead by Tibbets, spent months training in Wendover, Utah, before being shipped off to an American air base on the Pacific island of Tinian. Tibbets said it would be dangerous but if they were successful, it could end the war. Paul Tibbets, who was recruiting officers for a special mission. After completing his training, he was approached by Col. Gackenbach enlisted in the Army Aviation Cadet Program in 1943. Today, the 95-year-old is the only surviving crew member of those three planes. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the plane which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.
Army Air Corps and a navigator on the mission. Russell Gackenbach was a second lieutenant in the U.S. There were three strike planes that flew over Hiroshima that day: the Enola Gay, which carried the bomb, and two observation planes, the Great Artiste and the Necessary Evil. It was the first time a nuclear weapon had been used in warfare. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Russell Gackenbach was the navigator aboard the Necessary Evil. At the same time, it is clear that even these elite troops were shocked by the power of the atom bombs and the devastation that they had caused.Second Lt.
THE CREW OF THE ENOLA GAY ON DROPPING THE ATOMIC BOMB PROFESSIONAL
Both are clearly extremely able, professional servicemen. Perhaps the most interesting thing about these two interviews is the insight we get into the character of the two crewmen. Interesting or important points about the film When they did not, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing around 40,000 people and wounding 60,000. The president of the USA, Harry Truman, warned the Japanese to surrender. Many who survived the blast died later from the radiation. The heat of the blast was so intense that people at the centre of the explosion were simply vaporised. More than 70,000 people died and many more were injured. Normal life in the crowded Japanese city of Hiroshima came to a sudden and terrifying end when a US plane dropped an atomic device on to the city. On the morning of 6 August 1945, an atomic bomb was used in war for the first time. The next interviewee is Commander Frederick Ashworth, who was part of the crew that dropped the second atom bomb on Nagasaki. The Colonel then describes his experiences in a very calm way. The clip opens with an interview with Colonel Paul Tebbits, the officer in charge of the bomb group that dropped the Hiroshima Bomb.