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Michael Heyman, at the beginning of the script address the controversy generated by the first plans and script for the exhibition that "provoked intense criticism from World War II veterans and others who felt the original planned exhibit portrayed the United States as the aggressor and the Japanese as victims and reflected unfavorably on the valor and courage of American veterans." The Museum eventually replaced the original planned exhibit with a simpler display in which the focus was on the restoration of the Enola Gay by the Smithsonian, explanatory material on the aircraft, ancillary topics related to the use of the first atomic bomb, and a video about the Enola Gay's crew. Remarks by the Smithsonian's Secretary, I. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945. Only four members of the Enola Gay crew are still living: Tibbets, navigator Ted Van Kirk, weapons officer Morris Jeppson and radio operator Richard Nelson.This text accompanied the Smithsonian Institution's display, "Enola Gay," at the National Air and Space Museum commemorating the end of World War II and the role played by the B-29 aircraft, Enola Gay, that on Augcarried the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. His survivors include his wife, Mary Ann Conrad Ferebee, and four sons. After two years of flying school in the Army Air Corps, he was assigned to be a bombardier.
#SERVED ON THE CREW OF THE ENOLA GAY PROFESSIONAL#
His decorations included the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Bronze Star.Ī native of Mocksville, N.C., Ferebee wanted to be a professional baseball player as a youth but joined the Army in 1940. He flew aboard B-47s during the Cold War and B-52s as an observer during the Vietnam War. I wanted the bomb to work and end the war.”Īfter World War II, Ferebee served as a deputy commander for maintenance in several B-47 Stratojet bomber wings. Pages from Herman Bolton’s diary for April 1315, 1945, in which he documents an Army Air Forces crew bail out of a plane off the coast of Tinian Island. “People have to go back and study the history of the war and the attitude of the people at that time,” he said. “I’m sorry an awful lot of people died from that bomb, and I hate to think that something like that had to happen to end the war,” he said on the 50th anniversary of the bombing.
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Years later, Ferebee said he never felt guilty about dropping the bomb but felt regret about the death toll. Japan surrendered five days after that, on Aug. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb took 43 seconds to fall and make its mark on history. Ferebee, then 26 and a veteran of 64 combat missions, slept most of the way to Hiroshima and didn’t hear Tibbets explain to the rest of the crew what they were carrying. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay took off for a 13-hour flight to Japan with the first nuclear weapon ever deployed. Paul Tibbets, served with Ferebee in the European campaign, handpicked him for his crew and called him “the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bomb site.” bombing raid on Nazi-occupied France in 1942 and was the lead bombardier for the Allies’ first 100-plane daylight raid in Europe.
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In addition to the Hiroshima attack, Ferebee was along on the first U.S. He was 81.Ī career Air Force officer who retired as a colonel in 1970, Ferebee participated in a number of historic bombing runs during the war, first in North Africa, then in Europe and finally the Pacific.
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Thomas Wilson Ferebee, the bombardier in the crew of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War II, died Thursday in Windermere, Fla.