So General Tibbets, Commander of the B-29 that dropped the Hiroshima bomb, has died at 92. He and the rest of the crew of the Enola Gay (named, bizarrely, after his mother), have always said they have no regrets, and their stance has attracted criticism.
There has been a lot of debate about the justification for the use of atomic bombs in WWII. At the time, the reasoning was to prevent worse bloodshed then the 100,000 people killed outright at Hiroshima, followed by nearly half that number at Nagasaki and the thousands upon thousands condemned to lingering death. And these were civilians.
There was an outcry against the use of the bombs not long after the end of the war, the theory being that Japan was on the verge of surrender, and the bombs were used in a calculated attempt to intimidate Russia. Now the pendulum is swinging back to the original rationale: to prevent worse bloodshed and force the Japanese surrender. There’s an article detailing all these elements here.
But I don’t want to debate here the morality of it, but to talk about the effect on General Tibbets. How would you deal with the knowledge that you were directly responsible for the immediate deaths of 100,000 people and the agony of thousands more? Not your commanding officers, not the politicians, not the president, you?
Is it different in essence from ground troops killing fewer people but seeing the death and fear and agony of friends and enemies up close?
I don’t know how I could safely allow emotion to play any part in my life were I in General Tibbets’ shoes. I think I would have to shut down my feelings and rigidly contain my thoughts or else go insane. I think it would destroy my life.
I hope it didn’t destroy his life. I hope no other human being ever has to live with his memories or those of his crew, and I pray for his soul.
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There was a piece in the local paper this morning on Tibbetts. They quoted him in a 1975 interview, “I’m not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I’m proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did.” He added, “I sleep clearly every night.”
I can’t even begin to understand a mind that can compartmentalize things in that way. Apparently he could, though. Perhaps that’s the mark of a successful military man: being able to accept responsibility for multiple deaths, but also being able to divorce that responsibility from the rest of your life.
I don’t know what to say about Tibbetts — it is beyond my comprehension. However, I lived in Hiroshima (1.8 km from the site of the bomb blast) for a bit over a year and I visited beautiful Nagasaki. There is no residual hatred for Americans because of the bomb, just a great and profound sadness. The ceremony whereby the souls of those who died are sent back “over the water” in little boats lit by candles to the chanting of Buddhist dirges, is one I will not forget. It occurs along the banks of the river Ota every August 6.
Anita, Barbara, thank you for your comments. I hadn’t heard of the ceremony you mention, Barbara, thank you for describing it.
I saw an Bill Moyers interview Thomas Cahill regarding what makes for civilization and what does not. Cahill stated that the bomb would never have been dropped on Europe which is populated with white people. It was dropped on Asians intead. I think he was right. It was dropped on ‘people not like us’. In the eyes of some, that made it OK.
Thanks for your comment, Seventh Sister, and welcome to this space.
I’ve been trying to figure out whether what Cahill said can be right. By the time the atomic bombs were used, Hitler was dead and the war in Europe was over. It had been reasonably clear for some time that the allies were winning the European war.
But perhaps if the bombs were ready for use some time before Hiroshima (I don’t know enough about that element), then this terrible theory might be right. I hope not.