In this undated handout picture from the U.S.Army Air Force, the ground crew of the Enola Gay B29 bomber which bombed Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945 with the "Little Boy" atomic bomb, stands with pilot Col. Paul W. Tibbets, center, in the Marianas Islands.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted almost to his dying day that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

Tibbets died at his Columbus home, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said.

These guys must have inspired the Reno 911 character.

"HAND SALUTE" - Godspeed, General Tibbets . . .

A great American, I saw him speak about 20 years ago!

Charlie

It's a sad day when a person forgoes having a headstone so others can't protest him for doing his duty.

A sad day indeed.

He should have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

from the Patriot Post-- "PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Our nation lost another Patriot from the Greatest Generation this week—Brigadier General Paul Warfield Tibbets. As a 30-year-old colonel and pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, Tibbets flew the mission that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945. Then Col. Tibbets, who served in the Air Force until 1966, was challenged to defend his actions for most of his life. As he noted, “I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing. We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.” One person who has never questioned ending WWII with two nuclear bombs is my [the publisher's] father. He was a carrier pilot, flying F4U Corsairs. His Wing would have been in the early waves over the invasion of the Japanese mainland had those bombs not forced Japan to surrender. He and his wingmen resigned themselves to the fact that they would likely die in that invasion, along with hundreds of thousands of other Americans and many more Japanese citizens. God bless you, Sir, and thank you for your service to our country."

His nephew Paul Tibbets III was a SD county Sheriff. A very nice guy. X

I got his Obit in an email this morning... RIP Mr. Tibbets..

Hog