Friday, February 12, 1999 Lubbock Avalanche-Journal 9A

World War II generation recalls significance of Tibbets' mission
BY BOB GREENE

"At the time of Col. Paul Tibbets' mission, I was a young 19-year-old Marine."

The words belong to Robert A. Guth, who read the columns that appeared here recently about Paul Tibbets' 1945 flight to Hiroshima as pilot of the Enola Gay. Like many, he took the time to put his thoughts on paper.

"We had just finished some intense training for the final push against the Japanese homeland," Mr. Guth wrote. "Although our exact invasion location was secret, we found out later that we would indeed be sent in.

"At that time we heard scuttlebutt that an invasion of Japan would be very costly in casualties. I would have liked to thank President Truman at that time for his decision to order the bombing and I would like at this time to thank Paul Tibbets for his excellent mission.

'I thank Col. Tibbets and his crew, my wife Mary thanks them, our five children and 15 grandchildren thank them."

Mr. Guth's point - it is difficult to miss it - is that had the atomic bomb not been dropped on Hiroshima in the summer of 1945, untold numbers of American lives - perhaps including his - would have soon been lost. This comes up again and again in the letters arriving in response to the columns. So many men and women of the World War II generation, while recognizing the unfathomable extent of death and carnage that resulted from the bomb, feel that that bomb, in a profound and complex sense, was their salvation - and the salvation of family members yet unborn in 1945.

From Catherine E. Mitchell, 73, who lives in Biloxi, Miss.:

"I well remember that day when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. So often I have heard people saying that we should never have dropped that bomb. But those people were not living through the war.

In early 1945, my husband was sent to the Pacific. The country was preparing for the invasion of Japan and we all knew it. Had the dropping of the bomb not happened, I know that my husband would not have returned home - so many American lives would have been lost.

"The younger generations cannot possibly understand what we went through and how we felt about our country being attacked (at Pearl Harbor' - you can't know until you live through it. My 46 year-old father was also in the Pacific with the Seabees then, and my 20-year-old brother was finishing flight training.

"I sincerely hope that the young people of today will never have to go through a war. I am glad that I did not have to make the decision (to drop the bomb), but I am glad that it was done."

From E.R. Klamm: , .

"I was a naval communication officer, and we headed a large convoy of ships in Guam, Tinian and Saipan for the eventual invasion of Japan ... I commend Paul Tibbets and his crew. I congratulate him for naming his B-29 the Enola Gay, in honor of his mother. My mother, and my wife, were happy on my return Thanksgiving Day, 1945."

From Joe Schripsema: "I give thanks every day for just being alive due to the bravery of Paul Tibbets and his crew, and President Truman, who gave the order to drop the bomb. I was on an LST anchored off Tinian at the time. Day after day, night after night, we watched as plane after plane took off- we watched with hope that the war would end soon. ...

"It was a happy day for our ship when the news broke that the war was over, so that an invasion of Japan would not be necessary - thanks to Paul Tibbets and his crew."

In our next column, some more of these voices - not all of them belonging to Americans old enough to remember the day the bomb was dropped.

Bob Greene is a syndicated columnist with Tribune Media Services. 435 N. Michigan Aue., Suite 1500, Chicago, Illinois 60611.

P.70A