He never second-guessed Truman’s decision and took pride in knowing the critical job he performed in bringing the war to an end.įour days after that single bomb destroyed Hiroshima, Japan offered its surrender. He was always calm and confident in answering critics.
While he is distinguished in his hometown of Mocksville, N.C., he was occasionally accused, in later years, of having blood on his hands. He always said he never tossed and turned at night over his role in the mission. As the bombardier, peering through his Norden bombsight, he was the last man to see Hiroshima in any detail before it was leveled, making his perspectives on the event somewhat unique. He was the bombardier aboard the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb, and that in doing so, ushered in the nuclear age.Īs President Obama prepares for his visit to Hiroshima on Friday, I recall my uncle’s personal reflections. His order to attack Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, was carried out in no small part by my uncle, Maj.
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Paglia’s father was among many thousands spared because of President Truman’s decision to launch a nuclear strike against Imperial Japan. One is Salon columnist Camille Paglia, who in answering a letter from a reader in her April 21 column, mentioned her father’s service during the war, explaining how he and his Army unit, which was slated for an invasion of Japan, were “spared from certain decimation by the two atomic bombs and Japan’s surrender.” Millions of Americans have a personal or family connection to World War II.