You could see some fires burning on the edge of the city." I describe it looking like a pot of black, boiling tar. "The entire city was covered with smoke and dust and dirt. "Shortly after the second wave, we turned to where we could look out and see the cloud, where the city of Hiroshima had been," he said. "The plane jumped and made a sound like sheet metal snapping" after the explosion, VanKirk told the New York Times in an interview on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Much of Hiroshima, and with it many of its residents, was destroyed by the atomic bomb
He helped guide the plane over Hiroshima and dropped the 9,000-pound (4,080-kilogram) bomb on the city while many of its residents were still sleeping or just starting their day. VanKirk was teamed with pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee as part of the Enola Gay's 12-man crew. Three days later "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 people.Īfter the two bombings, and the Soviet Union's declaration of war, Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, bringing an end to World War II. It was the first time in history an atomic bomb was used in combat. Some 70,000 people were killed instantly.
The bomb exploded at 8:15 a.m., killing 140,000 people - around half the population of the southern Japanese port city. He was 93.Īt the age of 24, VanKirk was a navigator on the Enola Gay - the B29 Superfortress that dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Theodore "Dutch" VanKirk died of natural causes Wednesday at the Park Springs Retirement Community in Stone Mountain, Georgia where he lived, his son said.