Bomb. The Race to Buildand Stealthe World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Bomb. The Race to Buildand Stealthe World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Author:Steve Sheinkin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Published: 2019-10-31T11:07:28.669271+00:00


Paul Tibbets stands in front of the Enola Gay on Tinian Island, August 6, 1945.

THE PILOT

LATE IN THE SUMMER OF 1944, at the Alamogordo Air Force Base in New Mexico, a fighter pilot named Paul Tibbets got a strange phone call from his father in Miami.

“Are you in some kind of trouble, son?” his father asked.

Tibbets could hear the concern in his father’s voice. “Not that I know of,” he answered. “What makes you think so?”

“Well…” his father began, sounding unsure of whether or not to continue. “I hear some investigators—I think they were from the FBI—have been down here asking questions about you.”

Tibbets assured his father it was just a routine check. But he knew better. This was not normal.

Twenty-nine years old, Colonel Paul Tibbets was an experienced pilot who’d flown combat missions over Europe and North Africa. Now he was back in the States working as a test pilot, helping engineers design the new B-29 bomber. He was one of the best flyers in the country. So he couldn’t help but wonder: What exactly have I done wrong?

The mystery intensified a few days later when he got another call, this one from Air Force General Uzal Ent, telling him to report right away to Ent’s office in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“He told me to pack my bags,” Tibbets recalled. “I would not be returning.”

* * *

TIBBETS FLEW TO COLORADO AND WALKED into Ent’s headquarters the next morning. He was met by Colonel John Lansdale of Army Counter-Intelligence. Lansdale led Tibbets into a small side office.

“I’d like to ask you a couple of questions before we go in to see General Ent,” said Lansdale.

“Without explaining his purpose, he began talking about my personal history,” remembered Tibbets. “His ‘couple of questions’ stretched into an interrogation from which I soon discovered that he knew more about me than I could possibly remember about myself.”

“Have you ever been arrested?” Lansdale finally asked.

Tibbets’s mind raced back ten years to a night on the beach in Florida. He and his girlfriend had driven to a dark spot and climbed into the backseat. A while later they were startled by the sudden glare of a policeman’s flashlight. Could Lansdale really know about that? He must, figured Tibbets, he knows everything else.

Tibbets decided to tell Lansdale the story. Lansdale listened without comment.

Then he stood and said, “Now let’s go see General Ent.”

Tibbets followed Lansdale into Ent’s office, where the general sat at his desk. There were two other men there: a naval officer and a man in a suit.

Ent introduced Tibbets to Navy Captain William Parsons and Dr. Norman Ramsey, a professor of physics.

“I’m well satisfied with Colonel Tibbets,” Lansdale announced.

“That’s good,” said Ent. “I felt sure you would be.”

Ent then told Tibbets he had been chosen for a vital mission. A top-secret mission. Everything Tibbets was about to hear, Ent cautioned, would have to be concealed, even from his wife—even from the pilots and crews who would be working under him.

Then Ent turned to Professor Ramsey, saying, “Now you take over.



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