At 2:45 A.M. on August 6, 1945, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, commander of the 509th Bomb Group, departed Tinian as pilot-in-command of the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress loaded with a single bomb weighing four and a half tons. Called “Little Boy,” the bomb had an explosive power equal to 20,000 tons of TNT.
Inside the knee pocket of Paul’s flying suit was a small box containing 12 cyanide capsules, one for each member of the crew. Only Paul and the group flight surgeon knew he had them. These were to be used if they were captured, because of the many atrocity stories, some of them authenticated, that had been reported. As the Superfort approached the designated target in Japan, 1,500 miles from Tinian, Navy captain William S. Parsons, weaponeer and ordnance officer, armed the special mechanism of the bomb and reported it ready.
At 8:15 A.M. Japanese time, the first atomic bomb to be dropped in warfare exploded over Hiroshima. Within a few hours, the best-kept secret of World War II was no longer a secret. President Truman, en route home by Navy ship after meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam, had made the decision to use the atomic bomb on two cities after an ultimatum sent to Japan was rejected.
In his quarters at Fort Myer, Virginia, Hap Arnold received the message from Tooey Spaatz on Guam:
HIROSHIMA BOMBED VISUALLY WITH ONE TENTH [cloud cover] AT 052315A [August 5, 7:15 P.M. in Washington]. THERE WAS NO FIGHTER OPPOSITION AND NO FLAK. PARSONS REPORTS 15 MINUTES AFTER BOMB AS FOLLOWS: “RESULTS CLEAR-CUT SUCCESSFUL IN ALL RESPECTS. VISIBLE EFFECTS GREATER THAN IN ANY TEST. CONDITION NORMAL IN AIRPLANE FOLLOWING DELIVERY.”
I was not privy to the secret before we received word on Okinawa that an atomic bomb had been dropped. Since the 8th Air Force wasn’t involved, I had no need to know what it was all about, but I certainly followed the news closely and received intelligence briefings on the bomb’s effects on Hiroshima quickly thereafter.
When Japan refused to surrender, thousands of leaflets were dropped by the 20th’s B-29s during the next three days. They carried this message:
To the Japanese people: America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.
We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2,000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder, and we solemnly assure you that it is grimly accurate.
We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city.
Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our President has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin work of building a new, better, and peace-loving Japan.
You should take these steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.
Evacuate your cities now!
Unfortunately, a few Japanese military diehards did not heed or believe the message. There was no word from the Japanese government. On August 9, a second bomb, this one called “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki by Bock’s Car, a B-29 piloted by Major (later Major General) Charles W. Sweeney.
Sweeney had been prevented by an overcast from bombing Kokura, the primary target, and dropped on Nagasaki, his secondary. He spent an hour circling and used up so much fuel while he was going back and forth that he thought it expedient to come to Okinawa, rather than go all the way back to his home base in the Marianas. When he landed he came into my office and was debriefed. This was the first direct information I received on the bomb and the whole operation.
I have often been asked if I thought dropping these two atomic bombs was the right thing to do. In my opinion, it was, for one very simple reason: it saved lives. A land invasion of Japan would have cost both sides hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Of the 8th’s units scheduled to be in place by August 15, two bomb groups had begun to arrive on August 7, the day after the first A-bomb drop. However, according to the plan, we were not scheduled to be at full strength until February 1946.
Things happened fast after the second bomb drop. The Soviets, seeing the end clearly in sight, had declared war on Japan on August 8. With no word yet from the Japanese, Hap Arnold wanted to have a 1,000-plane raid made against Tokyo. The 20th could put up about 850 bombers, and Hap wanted the 8th to send up the balance for a convincing finale to hostilities.
George Kenney had the Okinawan fields tied up with other operations, so even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to send up the 8th’s B-29s, which were just beginning to arrive. However, 828 B-29s and 186 fighters were dispatched from the other resources available, so Hap got his wish with a total of 1,104 aircraft airborne. There were no losses.
Just two days before the surrender, Tooey Spaatz told me that if I wanted the 8th Air Force bombers to be in combat with the Japanese, I’d better get an operation going the next day. I told him, “No, if the war’s over, I will not risk one airplane nor a single bomber crew member just to be able to say the 8th Air Force had operated against the Japanese in the Pacific.” Some of the 8th’s long-range P-51s had arrived earlier and were based on Ie Shima, adjacent to Okinawa. They flew several escort missions over Japan for the 20th. That was enough.
V-J Day was declared on August 15, when Emperor Hirohito made a broadcast to his people. Arrangements were made for the Japanese to send emissaries to General MacArthur, supreme commander for the Allied Powers, to arrange for the surrender, which took place on the battleship Missouri, Admiral Bill Halsey’s flagship, on September 2, 1945. Along with all of the senior flag and general officers in the Pacific, I was invited to witness the signing of the surrender documents. I think we all viewed the event with a great feeling of relief. I know I did.
It was certainly a unique ceremony. We were all practically in fatigue uniforms, and it was a good thing for me we were. When I found out I was going to Tokyo for the ceremony, I immediately got my blouse out of a footlocker where it had been since I arrived on Okinawa. It was moldy and in terrible shape. I didn’t see how I was going to get it straightened out to wear to a formal affair.
I had a little Okinawan houseboy who was going to help me, so I asked him to brush the mold off and then press it. I told him to be very careful with the iron and to use a damp cloth so as not to burn it. He apparently forgot and left the iron on. There was no way I could wear that uniform. I was greatly relieved when word came that we were to dress in summer khakis.
Major General Ennis C. Whitehead, commander of the 5th Air Force, was visiting me at the time and we flew together to Tokyo. After we landed, Ennis said he wanted to make a quick trip somewhere, and he didn’t come back in time for us to board the boat that was to take us out to the Missouri. There was only one boat left when we got to the dock. It had been reserved for General MacArthur. We had to ask if we could hitch a ride. We were permitted aboard, but the chill in the air when MacArthur saw me was instantly obvious. I’m sure he thought our tardiness in making our boat was my fault.
Let no one think that I didn’t have great respect for General MacArthur. He was an outstanding military leader, strategist, and tactician. Totally self-confident and imperious, he had earned the right to be that way if he were so inclined. If I had served under him, I would have had great confidence in him as my superior. I’m sure he didn’t feel the same way about me.
The surrender ceremony was brief and we all wished we could have had more time to meet old friends and chat. Although we were dressed informally, General MacArthur made the ceremony seem formal because of its historical significance. It was brilliantly staged for world consumption. We were marched in and marched out. Afterward, 1,500 Navy carrier-based planes and 462 B-29 Superforts roared by overhead. It was hard to believe that the long months of killing and dying were over.
I returned to Okinawa to see if the 8th were to have any flying assignments while occupation forces moved in. We didn’t. However, the 20th flew over 1,000 B-29 sorties dropping food, clothing, and medical supplies to 150 POW camps.
The effort was not without its tragedies. Eight aircraft were lost with 77 casualties. In one instance, a B-29 supplying a POW camp in northern Korea was attacked by Soviet fighters and damaged so badly it had to make a crash landing. The Soviets said it was a “mistake.”
One of the supply shortages that marred an otherwise effective effort was that of large parachutes. When they ran out of them, the B-29 crews made free-fall drops. Some American prisoners of war, in their rush to get the supplies before the Japanese got them, were killed by the falling packs.
There is no doubt that the decision to use the awesome power of the atom to end the war will still be debated many years after all of us who served during World War II are gone. It was President Truman’s decision and his alone, based on the estimate that from 250,000 to 1,000,000 American casualties could be expected from an invasion, in addition to at least that many of the enemy. The Japanese surrender had come without a single American ground soldier having set foot in Japan. A home army of two million men would have been waiting for them if they had.
I have no regrets whatsoever that 8th Air Force bombers did not fly a single mission to bring the war to an end in the Pacific. As far as I was concerned, we had helped to prove the point in Europe. What was important now was to see that the peace could be sustained and that there would be no more Pearl Harbors.
Unknown to me until long after, while Americans were celebrating V-J Day, Joe had a brush with death that same day. During her visits to the rehabilitation center at Pawling, New York, she had talked with many of the patients who were having difficulty adjusting and were under psychiatric care. She was always a good listener and many of them confided their fears and worries to her confidentially. Not being trained in counseling, she volunteered to go to Fort Logan, Colorado, for a special course given by the Army.
While at Logan, she thought she saw a psychiatric patient who had been at Pawling, but whenever he saw her, he quickly turned away or covered up his face. This young man had crashed in the Pacific, had evaded capture, and had eventually returned to the American lines. He had witnessed atrocities that he could not shake from his mind. Obviously, he was still having adjustment problems.
Joe confronted him one day and found that he had avoided her because he was ashamed that he was still having difficulty. He was obsessed by the idea of returning to “kill Japs” and had learned that I was now stationed in the Pacific. He asked Joe to have me issue orders so he could be transferred there.
Joe was staying in the officers’ quarters while attending the counseling classes, and on the evening of V-J Day was resting in her room while the celebrations were going on at the officers’ club. There was a knock on the door and when Joe opened it, this young man, who had been drinking, lunged at her, threw her down on the floor, and threatened to kill her. She screamed and several men rushed to her aid. They subdued the lad and put him in a straitjacket. He later committed suicide. It was ironic that after all the close calls I had had during the war, she was the one who might have paid the supreme price for her service.
Just before I was to return to the States in September, I received a message from Hap asking if it would be possible for me to lead three B-29s nonstop from Japan to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate their long-range capabilities. The planes would require extra gas tanks installed. However, there were no suitable fields in Japan long enough and strong enough at the time from which the heavily loaded planes, each with a gross weight of 142,800 pounds, could take off safely.
While flattered to be asked to lead such an attention-getting, significant flight, I felt that Tooey Spaatz, Barney Giles, Curt LeMay, or Nate Twining should lead it. They were clearly identified with the success of the B-29’s operations, not me.
Apparently, word about the flight was also relayed to General MacArthur’s office as the supreme commander. Barney Giles happened to visit his office on routine business, and MacArthur asked Barney who was going to lead the flight. Barney said Doolittle. Nothing else was said.
Shortly thereafter, orders came from Washington that Barney would lead it, which he did. I had no problem with that decision, but I think it may have been made at MacArthur’s insistence and been based on the story in the London paper the previous May that implied I was going to win the war when I arrived in the Pacific. In any event, the three planes were modified and the flight was made from Guam, but the three aircraft, short of fuel, had to land at Chicago before proceeding to Washington. They were piloted by Barney Giles, Curt LeMay, and General Emmett F. “Rosie” O’Donnell.*
Bruce Johnson and I returned to the States in an unmodified B-29, which Bruce called “the baggage plane” for “the boys flying the glory mission.” All this bothered Bruce much more than it did me. We flew from Okinawa via Kwajalein, Hawaii, and Sacramento and landed at Washington National Airport on September 19, 1945, where a big crowd met our plane. Best of all, the crowd included Joe.
Joe and I had a quiet reunion with Jim, Jr., a captain then, and John, who was in his final year at West Point. There were a number of parties, receptions, and reunions with old friends during the next few days. At one of them in New York, Alex Fraser, my old mentor and boss at Shell, asked me if I would return to Shell as vice president and as a member of the board of directors. I was flattered, especially when he mentioned that I could come back at three times my salary as a lieutenant general. That was an interesting figure. When I joined Shell in 1930, I was hired at three times my Army pay as a first lieutenant. When I left Shell to go back in uniform in 1940, my pay as a major was exactly one-third of my Shell wages.
I didn’t give Alex an answer then. The pay increase was very tempting, but there was still much immediate postwar work to be done. If there were to be a separate air force, I wanted to help get it started.
There was one very serious matter that I had to take care of before anything else. Eight of my boys had been captured by the Japanese after the Tokyo Raid, and we didn’t know what had happened to them except that the Japanese had executed three of them. We didn’t know for certain which ones. In late August, we heard the good news that four survivors—Lieutenants Chase J. Nielsen, Robert L. Hite, and George Barr, and Corporal Jacob DeShazer—had been released from prison and were on their way home. They were in very poor physical shape, and we learned that they had been tortured, starved, beaten, kept in solitary confinement, and sentenced to death. The death sentence had been carried out in October 1942 by firing squad on the other three—Dean E. Hallmark, William G. “Bill” Farrow, and Harold A. Spatz. The death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment for the remaining five. They were never to be released, even when the war ended; presumably they were to be hidden so the sentence could be carried out, no matter which side won. Lieutenant Robert J. “Bob” Meder, the fifth man, died of beriberi and malnutrition in prison in December 1943.
The deaths of my boys hurt me deeply and I awaited the arrival of the survivors in the States. Three of them (Nielsen, Hite, and DeShazer), emaciated and numbed from the months of starvation and inactivity, were returned quickly and recovered in due time. They said George Barr was still in China when they left because he was too sick to be moved. I had every confidence he would be taken care of, but heard nothing about his whereabouts for several weeks after the initial news release.
George had been orphaned at six months of age when his father drowned in a boating accident. When his mother couldn’t support him, George spent the years from age nine through high school in a boys’ foster home in Yonkers, New York. His sister, four years older, became the special interest of Mrs. Charles A. Towns, a social worker, who had taken her into their home. Mrs. Towns and her husband, themselves childless, “adopted” the Barr children in fact but not legally. They were determined to do what they could to see that these two luckless children were not set adrift without a proper sense of values. George was invited to the Townses’ house to be with his sister as much as possible. George had gone to college with the Townses’ financial help.
After the raid, when the names of the eight prisoners were known, Mrs. Towns communicated with the other families frequently and became the go-between to relay any information she had that might give them some hope. She continually sought information from the International Red Cross, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Army Intelligence, and the repatriated Americans from Japan who had been returned to the States in June 1942.
The Townses were overjoyed when it was announced that George was one of the survivors. They met Nielsen, Hite, and DeShazer and sought news about George, but none of the three knew anything about what had happened to him since they had bid him good-bye in China. The Townses felt better, however, when a cryptic note arrived from George saying he would be home soon. But this was followed by weeks of silence.
Mrs. Towns wrote to or called everyone she could think of to find out George’s whereabouts. I was on the road giving speeches at that time, but there were telephone call slips and a distraught letter from her waiting for me when I returned to the Pentagon. I dropped everything and started an official search. In my reply I assured Mrs. Towns that “we who love George Barr will do everything we can for him. Our objective, however, is not to reform the Army but to find him and help him recover.”
From the time of his release, I found out later, George had been caught up in an inexcusable series of medical administrative foul-ups. The war was over and thousands of veterans were getting out. It was a time of military personnel chaos. Those with sufficient “points” for overseas time and length of war service were given priority for release and brought home as fast as possible to be separated from the service.
George had been kept under medical care in a hotel in Peking, his last place of imprisonment. He was too weak to travel and was experiencing hallucinations and periods of extreme anxiety and depression. He was also too mentally unstable to travel, but as he got stronger and seemed more rational, he was transferred under restraint as a mental patient from Peking to Kunming, then to Calcutta. Then, for reasons never ascertained, he was returned to Kunming. He was eventually flown home across the Pacific with two physicians as escorts. They were given transportation on a priority basis as an incentive to accompany him and were destined for separation as soon as they arrived in the States. Their role was to see that he didn’t harm himself. When they arrived at Hamilton Field on the West Coast, the doctors went immediately to the separation center in accordance with their orders.
It was a weekend and George went alone on a military bus to the base hospital. He had no records, could not answer questions put to him by the duty sergeant, was wearing an ill-fitting uniform, and was obviously confused. Nothing could be done for him over the weekend, so the sergeant took his clothes, gave him pajamas, and assigned him a room.
There was no one else around and George was suddenly overcome with a feeling of total abandonment. Freedom after nearly 40 months of solitary confinement was too unreal. He couldn’t handle it. Overwhelmed and in desperation, he tried to hang himself from a light fixture, but was unsuccessful. He was immediately placed in a padded room and thereafter treated as a mental patient. No one believed his story about having been on the Tokyo Raid, and he languished for days trying to convince the medics that he was telling the truth.
Although he had named the Townses as next of kin and had designated his “home of record” as Yonkers, New York, George had enlisted in the AAF while a student at Northland College, in Ashland, Wisconsin. When he told the medics this, they assumed that he should be transferred to Schick General Hospital at Clinton, Iowa, the nearest military hospital to Ashland. Along with other patients, he was transported by train in a straitjacket and at night was placed in bed under a restraining sheet.
It took three days to make the trip and when the train arrived at Clinton, George’s ability to reason was about gone. He was placed in a locked ward with seven other disturbed patients where he remained in a confused state. George did not recall that any doctor inquired about him or visited to check on his physical or mental condition.
Somehow, Mrs. Towns found out where George was before I did, in November 1945, and went to Clinton to see him. George’s brother-in-law, then living in Milwaukee, also visited, as did several girlfriends George had known in college. Although he was confused at how much they had all seemed to age, these visits and a balanced diet helped George recover mentally, and he was transferred to an open ward. However, he still had not seen a doctor, had no money, had only hospital pajamas and robe to wear, and seemingly had no status as a human being. He remained under constant surveillance by medical attendants who would offer him no advice or information on his condition or tell him when he might be released.
I immediately flew out to Clinton when the Army sleuths located him. Not knowing George’s true condition, I had to be cautious because I knew he would be surprised to see me. I greeted him like an old friend and George immediately broke into tears. I was the first military person he had seen that he knew since his buddies had left him in China. He seemed very normal to me, so we went for a walk and he tried to tell me everything he could. He was hesitant at first, but then the tears flowed and the words began to pour out. Catharsis was obviously what he needed.
I was shocked and found it difficult to believe that he had not seen a doctor and had no money, no clothes, and no military status except that of “patient.” The last of my Tokyo Raiders to come home needed help, and I was going to see that he got it.
I can say unreservedly that I have never been so angry in my life as I was when George told me what had happened to him. I walked with him back to the ward and went immediately to the hospital commander’s office, where I unloaded Doolittle’s worst verbal fury on his head. I won’t repeat what I said because it would burn a hole in this page. I will say that George was quickly outfitted in a new uniform, complete with the ribbons he didn’t know he had earned, and was given a check for over $7,000 in back pay, and orders promoting him to first lieutenant. Best of all, he was seen immediately by a psychiatrist and began the slow road back to recovery.
Before I left, I asked George if he remembered that before we left the Hornet I had promised the fellows a party in Chungking. He said, “Yes, sir, I do.”
“Well, George, we never had that party because you and the rest of the fellows couldn’t make it. But I’m going to keep that promise. The whole gang is invited to be my guests in Miami on my birthday on December 14. I want you to come. I’ll send an airplane for you.”
My visit, George told me later, was a turning point in his recovery. George and others were picked up all over the country by military aircraft and brought to Miami’s McFadden-Deauville Hotel. We let our hair down for three days of total carefree relaxation. As I said in my letter to each of them, we would “swap handshakes, yarns, and toasts.” In trying to locate everyone who had flown on the Tokyo mission, I learned that four men had become prisoners of war of the Germans. Besides the two who had drowned, the one who died on the bailout, and the four who died in prison, 13 others had made the supreme sacrifice in other theaters of war. “I find it difficult to realize that so many of our buddies have gone,” I wrote, “and call this sad condition to your mind in order that we may do them homage.”
Some would say we raised hell at that Miami reunion. I wouldn’t quarrel with that assessment. When several suggested we have a reunion like that every year, I told them I’d like that, but the party had cost me $2,000 and I couldn’t afford it every year. We had shared an unusual life-threatening situation and had formed an unusual bonding relationship. It was understood that we would meet again annually if we could.
We didn’t have a reunion in 1946 but met again in Miami in 1947. It could be said that we raised more hell. So much, in fact, that the hotel’s night watchman made a report to the hotel manager. It said:
The Doolittle boys added some gray hairs to my head. This has been the worst night since I worked here. They were completely out of my control.
I let them make a lot of noise, but when about 15 of them went into the pool at 1:00 A.M., including Doolittle, I told them there was no swimming allowed there at night. They were in the pool until 2:30 A.M.
I went up twice more without results. They were running around the halls in their bathing suits and were noisy until 5 A.M. Yes, it was a rough night.
When we checked out, the manager showed us the report and asked us all to autograph it. He said as far as he was concerned, we had earned the right to make all the noise we wanted to in his hotel.
We have held a reunion every year since then, except one year during the Korean War and one year during the Vietnam War. Of all the men who served with me during World War II, I have been closest to my Tokyo Raiders and treasure the days we have spent together at reunions over the years. I know a commander is not supposed to have any favorites, but these men are mine. I care deeply for them and have always considered them part of my family.
* Two months later, four B-29s, led by General Frank Armstrong, did fly nonstop from Tokyo to Washington. They departed from a base on Hokkaido that had been prepared by the Japanese for the specific purpose of sending bombers on one-way missions from Japan to bomb America. These were not to have been suicide attempts. If the planes were not shot down, they would have landed at some convenient airfield after dropping their bombs, and been impounded or destroyed, and the crews would then have assumed the status of prisoners of war.