NINE
THE TARGET WAS a circle with a diameter of three hundred feet painted on the ground. We were expected to drop the pumpkin into this dot from an altitude of 30,000 feet with an accuracy of impact no more than two hundred feet from the center of the target. All things considered, this was the easy part.
The problem was: once the pumpkin was replaced by the bomb, would we have enough time to get out of there after we released? Without knowing the exact explosive force that would be unleashed or even the true nature of the explosion, the scientists at Los Alamos offered their best estimate. To survive we would have to get the airplane a minimum of eight miles away from the blast.
It was left to Colonel Tibbets to figure out how to accomplish such a maneuver. From 30,000 feet, the bomb would detonate forty-three seconds after we released it. Conventional wisdom dictated that it was physically impossible for the B-29, traveling at 320 miles an hour ground speed, to be eight miles away in forty-three seconds. If the plane were to continue in a straight line after release of the bomb, given the speed of the B-29, we would be approximately five miles away from the blast in forty-three seconds. Not enough. We could be blown out of the sky.
Tibbets’s answer to the problem was brilliant. The bomb, of course, would be released before we were over the center of the target. On release, it would initially travel at the same speed as the airplane, approximately 320 miles per hour ground speed, then fall in a trajectory toward the target. Tibbets used a classic geometric formula we all learned in junior high school, a gift from the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, that calculates the distance from a point on a tangent to a semicircle. If, immediately upon release, we banked the B-29 into a sharp, rapid, diving 155-degree turn—going back in the same direction we came from in a tight arc, or a tangent to a semicircle—we could take the airplane eight slant-range miles or more away from the blast in forty-three seconds, even though the maneuver would reduce our altitude by about seventeen hundred feet.
It was a totally unheard-of tactic for bomber pilots trained to fly in tight formations into and away from the target. But once Tibbets had devised it, it was up to the pilots to execute it. There were no training schools or manuals on this one. We would have to train ourselves.
The irony was that once we perfected the maneuver and got the airplane up to twelve miles away in time, the scientists were still not completely sure that that would be enough. This was to be the first bomb used in combat that had not been tested live from an airplane. We would never know for sure what would happen until after the atomic bomb was actually dropped.
With the arrival of the B-29s in November, Tibbets wanted intense practice to begin for bombing accuracy and perfection of the evasive maneuver. The first of our new redesigned airplanes would not be delivered until the spring of 1945, but the B-29s available to us would serve the immediate task at hand. Tibbets and his crew and my crew and I led by example in executing the maneuver. Day after day the crews ran missions over our three bombing ranges in the desert and on the Salton Sea. Pilots who failed to master the technique were given additional special training. The pressure was there to milk the very best each man could deliver. All elements of the groups—engineering, support, and air crews—worked tirelessly and sometimes around the clock. It had to be picture-perfect right. Although all the crews made good progress in improved proficiency, of the fifteen crews, three began to emerge with the best overall results: Colonel Tibbets’s crew, Captain Claude Eatherly’s crew, and my crew.
The nucleus of the 509th had been formed when Tibbets invited pilots Don Albury and Bob Lewis, flight engineer John Kuharek, and me to join him at Wendover. He specifically requested three combat veterans be assigned to him: Tom Ferebee, his bombardier; Dutch Van Kirk, his navigator; and bombardier Kermit Beahan, all of whom had served with him in North Africa and England. Another highly experienced navigator, Jim Van Pelt, was brought along on the recommendation of Ferebee and Van Kirk. From this core group Tibbets formed two crews, one for himself and the other for me. His crew consisted of Lewis as his copilot, Ferebee, and Van Kirk. My crew had Albury as copilot, Kuharek, Van Pelt, and Beahan. The rest of the crews would soon be filled out by Tibbets based on recommendations received from his key people. When he or I was not flying as airplane commander, our copilots, Lewis and Albury, took command of our crews, an arrangement unique to Tibbets and me.
Our past experience with testing the B-29 over an extended period of time gave our crews an advantage over other highly qualified pilots who came through in the training exercises. Pilots are by nature competitive. Intensifying this natural tendency were the isolation of Wendover, the relentlessness of the training, and the uncertainty about what we were training to do. For the most part the competition was good-natured and the degree of cooperation among all the personnel was exemplary. A sense of common cause bound us together in this desolate place to train for an ultrasecret mission that might end the war.
Although, as with any group, problems and conflicts would arise, the colonel kept his focus squarely on one object: deliver the weapon to a target. To meet this goal he would suffer fools—to a point, overlook indiscretions—if they were small, and even tolerate odd behavior—but only if the skills of the men involved justified keeping them.
Being encapsulated in this isolated place under heavy guard and constant surveillance was wearing not only on the men but also on their families who had joined them. Dorothy and I had driven to Wendover from Grand Island in a beat-up 1938 eight-cylinder Pontiac coupe I had bought in Florida for $250. Don Albury and his wife, Roberta, had driven in tandem with us in their car. The first night out we pulled into Cheyenne, Wyoming. Dorothy was ill with a high fever, and our car was on its last legs, having struggled up the Rocky Mountains to Cheyenne. I recommended to Dorothy a time-tested remedy—a glass of warm milk with two shots of straight 100-proof bourbon. She went out like a light and the next morning was feeling fine.
The Pontiac was another matter. A mechanic at the local service station confirmed what I had already suspected: the compression in the engine was at about 28 percent of what it should have been. Since the rest of the trip would be less arduous, I asked him to do what he could just to get me to Salt Lake. He poured some elixir into the crankcase and off we went, this time descending toward the Great American Desert and Wendover. Whatever he put in there worked. The Pontiac limped into Rock Spring, Wyoming, that afternoon, the next day into Salt Lake City, and finally, on the fourth day, into Wendover.
Living accommodations at the base were Spartan and in short supply. Priority for base housing was given to civilian personnel with critically needed skills. As an officer, I was entitled to accommodations at the bachelor officers’ quarters. Military dependents, however, had to fend for themselves. Dorothy had resigned her commission after we were married and was now a civilian nurse at the base, which qualified us for base housing. Our first house was a two-room, twenty-foot-by-twenty-foot concrete block structure with a concrete slab floor, which was how all housing at Wendover was constructed. We had a bedroom and an all-purpose living room, kitchen, rest room, you name it. Later, Colonel Tibbets arranged for us to move into a larger four-room house with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bath. We had two coal stoves, one potbelly for heat and the other for cooking. It was, by comparison, palatial.
For Dorothy and all the other wives life was particularly tough at Wendover. The men at least had their military responsibilities, as difficult as those jobs might be. But the women had been plunked down in a barren outpost to cope with endless sand, dust, mice, rats, bitter cold, wilting heat, and isolation. The isolation was made more palpable because we couldn’t tell our families anything about what we were doing. This kind of secrecy would invite strains for any married couple. The base wives also had to live every day with the reality that their husbands might be sent overseas and killed. Dorothy never complained or pressed me about why I had volunteered to bring her to this place or what I was doing there. Instead, she dedicated herself to her job as a civilian nurse at the base hospital.
Fortunately, we were young and resilient. We found a way to make our own fun and entertainment. Dorothy and I invited our friends over for dinner, and they us. We ran dances and other events at the officers’ club. This drew us all together in confronting our common condition.
When we ventured outside of the base, even the town itself reminded no one of home. Wendover had a split personality. It sits dead center on the line dividing Nevada and Utah, equidistant between Elko, Nevada, 125 miles to the west, and Salt Lake City, 125 miles to the east at the southern tip of the Great Salt Lake. Half the town was Mormon dry and the other half was wide-open, no holds barred, freewheeling Nevada wet. When we dined at the local State Line Hotel, one half of the dining room served us cocktails with our meal, but the other side could not. To our left, wine, women, and song—not to mention unrestricted gambling. To our right, buttoned-up restraint. These two cities in one location could have been on different planets.
The combination of our living conditions and our training drew the crews closer together. Like most airplane commanders, I tended to spend much of my time with my crew. Each man brought a unique but complementary strength to our common cause. As a unit, we developed unquestioning faith in the character, ability, and judgment of each other.
Captain Don Albury and I had worked together since the testing program at Eglin. He was a steady, unflappable, even-tempered professional—and a skilled pilot. I knew that I could count on him without question, regardless of the situation. Captain Jim Van Pelt, assigned to me by Tibbets, excelled as a navigator. With a man like Jim on my team I had the luxury of not worrying about anything except flying the airplane. Jim would guide me to where I was supposed to be and get me home on a true and efficient course. John Kuharek, my flight engineer at Eglin, was reliable and resourceful. He knew how to get the most out of the airplane and was a second pair of eyes for me in monitoring the various aircraft systems in flight.
And finally there was Kermit Beahan, my bombardier. Of all the men I knew during the war, he was the most generous, engaging, and full of life. He had an enthusiasm for life, a zest for living—not in any flamboyant or overbearing way, but with a genuine joy that attracted people to him. People liked being around Kermit. With his slow, southeast Texas drawl, he made you feel at ease. Kermit was a true artist with a bombsight. If it was possible to deliver a bomb to its intended target, he was the man to do it. When we named our B-29, I decided to let the crew offer ideas and then vote on it. The name that emerged as the unanimous favorite was, in honor of Kermit, The Great Artiste. It was a double entendre. Kermit was not only an artiste with the Norden bombsight, he was also an artiste with the ladies. His charm and sense of humor attracted women. They loved him.
But Kermit was far more than a skilled technician or a charmer. He had survived extensive combat in North Africa and Europe, had been shot down four times in combat, and had once survived a crash landing in the African desert that killed his pilot and copilot. The only residue of these experiences was a slight stutter, a reminder of the trauma that followed most of the airmen who survived the meat grinder of the air war in Europe. It was therefore extraordinary to me how steadily and calmly he carried out his duties. When Kermit leaned over the bombsight, it was as if he closed off the entire world around him. He concentrated on the target with single-mindedness, regardless of what was happening around him. His steady hand made the minute adjustments that meant the difference between hitting the target or hitting something unintended. In those days, we had no laser-guided smart bombs, just the skill of men working together.
It was Kermit whom Colonel Tibbets chose in December 1944 to go to England to consult with the Royal Air Force about a carrying hook for our bomb. The RAF was dropping ten-thousand-pound conventional iron bombs, and Tibbets wanted an assessment of whether their hook could accommodate the pumpkins we were dropping. Based on what Kermit learned, we requisitioned sample hooks and blueprints from the British. With some modification, this is what we used.
I should note this trip was no vacation. During Kermit’s visit, the Germans were showering London with V-2 rockets. For all its starkness, Wendover was at least safe.
Claude Eatherly had come in with the 393rd. He was a charmer of a different stripe. A good-looking guy, in the mold of a hotshot pilot, he was flamboyant, erratic, impulsive, and at times, reckless. Claude liked to gamble and was not averse to getting embroiled in fights with the local constabulary and our security people. Our outfit’s Sergeant Bilko, he always had one scheme or another brewing. He lived life big. He was also a guy you couldn’t resist. No matter what he did, the guys couldn’t stay upset at him. I liked him. He was a fun guy to be around, to have a beer with, and he always had an original tall tale to tell. But above all else, Claude was a seasoned and experienced pilot. He had the ability to fly with great precision; during our training sessions, he handled every type of simulated emergency situation I threw at him with competence and cool.
After the missions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been completed, and while we were still on Tinian, Claude would often remark that he was going to make a ton of money off the atomic bombings after the war. I believe he came close. He is the one who fabricated the story that he had witnessed the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and that seeing the blast made such an impact on him he went crazy. The story emerged in Texas after the war. It was part of his successful insanity defense in federal district court. Claude had been arrested in Texas and tried in federal court for armed robbery of a general store that happened to house a United States Post Office. He beat the rap and gained notoriety for a while. The press, naturally, picked up his story without ever verifying it. And year after year the story gained more acceptance with each reprinting in the newspapers. If any reporters had bothered to check, they would have learned that Claude not only didn’t witness the atomic blast, he had, in fact, flown one of the weather planes on August 6 that was nowhere near Hiroshima at the time of the blast. But once in print the story took on a life of its own that persists to this day. Claude did indeed have a sad time after the war. But his tale about witnessing the blast is not true. In true Eatherly style, however, it did get him out of a jam.
Then there was Bob Lewis. Bob had been with Tibbets from the start of the B-29 testing program back at Eglin. He was one of the most experienced and capable B-29 pilots in the air force, having benefited from Tibbets’s guiding hand. But unlike Tibbets, who was reserved and self-assured, Lewis seemed driven to establish an aura about himself as a fearless bomber pilot. Competition among the crews to score high in their proficiency ratings was healthy and always collegial. For Bob Lewis, however, it was more. He wanted to be the best so he could stand apart from all the other pilots. His style wore thin with many in our squadron.
As Colonel Tibbets became more enmeshed in the overall management of the 509th, Lewis lost what he thought was a special one-to-one relationship with him. He compensated, I suspect, by a more outward show of odd behavior. Over time, his behavior became more erratic. Once he took an airplane for an unauthorized trip home for Christmas. As time passed at Wendover, and later on Tinian, Lewis became a more and more disagreeable fellow. As incredible as it sounds, he believed that he, and not Paul Tibbets, would command the strike airplane when the mission we were training for was flown.
Lewis, like Eatherly, also added to the popular myths that have surrounded the atomic missions and the men who flew them. To my knowledge, they are the only two from the crews of the 393rd who, to pursue their own agendas, distorted the historical record. Sometime after the war, Lewis attracted a lot of press attention when he reported that upon seeing the explosion over Hiroshima he’d entered in his log, “My God, what have we done!” A reflective, remorseful, and dramatic remark by Paul Tibbets’s copilot. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. Not only would such a statement have been totally out of character for Bob Lewis, but, in fact, he said quite the opposite at the time. As heard by members of the crew on the flight deck, and told to me many times thereafter, what Bob actually said was, “My God, look at that son of a bitch go!” His written entry in the log says only “My God.” What I can say directly is that, after the flight, Lewis was excited and elated that the mission had been a success, as was everyone else. There were no expressions of doubt or remorse. We had done our job.
The training continued through November and into December. All the crews were becoming more comfortable with carrying the ten-thousand-pound pumpkin and gaining more confidence in executing the quick banking maneuver. Meanwhile, more personnel were pouring into Wendover. An endless stream of civilian and military liaisons with the Manhattan Project were coming and going. Each visit of scientists brought some further refinement or new idea to facilitate our mission. This, of course, only added to the difficulties of those in the 509th who would be required to make those changes. It seemed that, not unlike our surroundings, we were operating on a base of shifting sands.
During the latter part of December, after Beahan had been dispatched to England, an ordnance officer assigned to Project Alberta arrived to test a new fuse. For this test, Tom Ferebee would fly with me in Kermit’s absence. The ordnance officer, a major, sat behind Albury and me. The officer had briefed Tom earlier in the day about the fuse. My first impression was that this major seemed to think we were at his disposal, particularly in the way he spoke to Tom before and during the flight.
Tom took his position as bombardier in the front of the canopy, sitting over the bombsight. Reaching the initial point, the IP, which is where we would begin a bomb run, Tom and I made our final adjustments. We approached the AP, or aiming point, where Tom would release the bomb. Prior to arriving at the AP, Tom had set the series of switches necessary to activate the electrical circuits to release the bomb. With the aiming point in his crosshairs, he said, “Bomb away.”
I immediately took the airplane into a 155-degree turn as quickly as I could. Tom looked over his shoulder and said, “Chuck, the bomb didn’t release.”
He’d barely gotten the words out when the ordnance officer, with some expression of disgust, moved clumsily past me, reached over Tom’s shoulder, and pushed the backup manual release lever, causing the bomb to fall from the bomb bay while we were still in a steep turn. Luckily, the bomb cleared the doors and the side of the airplane and fell free. It could just as easily have struck the doors or side of the airplane while we were banking to the right and damaged the airplane. Five tons of concrete striking the plane at this angle could have had catastrophic results.
I rarely get angry in flight, but at that moment I could hardly control my rage. The stupidity of what he had done deeply offended me. After all we had gone through without an incident, this stranger, a guest on my airplane, could have doomed us all. Under no circumstances should he have interfered with the bombardier—or, for that matter, with any other member of the crew or the equipment on board. The proper procedure in such a situation would be to check the circuits and go around again. Whatever had possessed this dolt to do such a knuckleheaded thing was beyond me. I don’t recall all the adjectives that gushed forth, but I know there was little I didn’t call this guy.
When we landed, I chased him out of the airplane and continued my harangue on the tarmac in front of a gathering crowd. This was the first and only time during our project that I lost my temper, and in so public a way. Tibbets and some other brass had come running down to the flight line because something had obviously gone wrong with the test. I made it clear to them and everyone within earshot that I never wanted this guy near me, my crew, or any aircraft I ever flew again. Having spent my outrage, I glanced over at Tibbets to see if I had perhaps gone too far. But I could see that wry smile breaking and the atta-boy look. Not surprisingly, although this major remained at Wendover for a while, he never came near me again.