ELEVEN
BACK AT WENDOVER, we were ready.
After final assembly at the Martin Aircraft Company, our brand-new and redesigned B-29s were delivered during March and April of 1945 via Offut Air Force Field in Omaha, Nebraska. Each airplane was assigned to one crew, although occasionally crews would fly different airplanes if their B-29s were undergoing maintenance. My crew was designated as C-15. Our assigned aircraft as delivered from the factory was Number 89, which was painted in block numbers on the nose of the fuselage. Later the fuselage would be painted with our name, The Great Artiste, and our logo, a debonair magician in tails. For the missions, however, all nose art would be removed. Our unit markings would also be changed prior to the missions to confuse the enemy about who we were and where we came from, in case they got to us with fighters.
We spent March and April flying the new airplanes and getting accustomed to them, continuing the never-ending practicing. We rehearsed every detail again and again and again to the point of exasperation. All fifteen crews were at the peak of their readiness to fly the mission.
Although it had never been said, I sensed that Paul Tibbets considered crew C-15 one of the best in the 509th, maybe even the best. One indication of his confidence in our crew was that he had chosen us to fly a critical test for the scientists who were still working to perfect the fusing system for the bomb. Tibbets briefed me on the mission. We would drop a pumpkin from 30,000 feet with a new version of a proximity fuse, intended to detonate at 1,890 feet. He stressed that the scientists were having considerable trouble correcting problems with the system and that this test was crucial to them. Although the pumpkin would be filled with concrete, a pound of high explosives would be attached to the fusing system so that the scientists could tell if the fuse functioned as predicted at the correct altitude with an aerial explosion.
By that time, Kermit Beahan and I had become almost as one on a bomb run. Able to anticipate each other’s moves, he called out minor adjustments to me on the approach from the IP to the aiming point for release of the bomb. This coordination between the pilot and his bombardier is more an art than a learned procedure. For this test, we were flying over the test range adjacent to Wendover so that the gathered multitude of scientists, ordnance personnel, and assorted technicians could observe the drop and the fruits of their labors.
Beahan yelled, “Bomb away!” and the airplane jumped up as ten thousand pounds suddenly departed. Instantaneously, I was taking the airplane into a sharp 155-degree diving turn when an explosion ripped upward and slammed into the fuselage. The new improved fuse had just detonated directly below us. The airplane shuddered and I gripped the yoke to maintain control in case any damage had occurred. But the airplane was okay. I was told after we landed that the explosion had occurred less than one hundred feet beneath us—too close for comfort.
On the ground, my crew gathered around waiting for my reaction. I said what all of them were thinking, “I hope they get it right before we carry a real one.” As much as I respected and trusted the scientists, a voice in the deep recesses of my mind reminded me that ultimately, it was the weapon we would carry that was important to the scientists, not our safety. They wanted the bomb to work. They were seeking the success of their voyage from theoretical physics to a real-world application. Success for them didn’t necessarily mean our survival. It was a dark thought.
The 509th’s readiness was another concern. It is hard to keep a unit at high alert for an extended period of time without action. The level of proficiency will inevitably begin to deteriorate. Our entire organization—from the air crews to the maintenance and engineering staff to the air support personnel—had been melded into a unified command, and we were firing on all twelve cylinders, like a fine-tuned Rolls-Royce engine forced to idle in Park.
The problem manifested itself in the increasing volume of calls from the Salt Lake City Police Department to our base each weekend. A string of offenses ranging from traffic violations to property damage to assaults mounted. The men were bored, restless, and frustrated.
From an operational standpoint, though, the last indispensable piece of the puzzle, the First Ordnance Squadron, had been officially added in March. The First Ordnance was manned by the highly skilled technicians, ordnance experts, and machinists who would actually manufacture many of the bomb’s delicate components and assemble them on Tinian. They had been working with the Manhattan and Alberta people for many months perfecting the various components that would have to be assembled in the confines of the bomb casing. These specialists developed many of the techniques necessary to machine the parts that were essential to the close tolerance required by the theoretical scientists who were working to fit the pieces into the package that would be the weapon.
Because of their work and their intimate contact with, and knowledge of, the internal components of what would eventually become a nuclear weapon, they were under even more restrictive security than we were. Cordoned off from the rest of the 509th, they were totally segregated, prohibited from speaking with other 509th personnel about what they were doing. When they traveled off the base, they couldn’t mix with anyone, military or civilian. They were always accompanied by security men, and when they were outside their area, even within their own group, they were not allowed to discuss their work for fear an offhand remark might be overheard. Even construction work within their compound was done by them to prevent any possible leak of information, no matter how seemingly unimportant.
The First Ordnance Squadron was at the core of the many-layered levels of secrecy and security, like the concentric rings of an onion, that was Wendover—the 509th, Silverplate, Project Alberta, and the Manhattan Project.
With all the pieces of our organization working like the proverbial well-oiled machine, it seemed that my rather unusual arrangement of commanding the transport squadron while maintaining a bomber at my disposal would remain in place. No one voiced any objection or raised any question. It was working, so don’t monkey around with it.
But fate was once again about to step in just a matter days before we were to begin our deployment overseas, setting off a chain reaction that would put me in command of the bomber squadron. Even for an eyewitness to the event, it was hard to believe at the time.
I was down at the flight line when a C-54 transport landed. While the C-54 was parked at its hard stand, the deputy group commander, a lieutenant colonel and technically the number-two guy under Tibbets on the organizational chart of the 509th, stepped out of the airplane. A jeep that had been waiting off to one side pulled up to the transport. Two armed MPs and two security men greeted the deputy group commander and an animated conversation ensued. While the conversation continued, one MP took a duffle bag from the jeep and dumped it on the ground. The conversation was brief. The security men, even from a distance, were emphatic. With little ceremony, one MP took the colonel’s arm, the other grabbed the duffle bag, and they escorted him to a waiting transport, which immediately took off.
It struck me as I watched this scene unfold that there was no attempt to make it discreet. It was all played out quite publicly.
Later in the day, Tom Classen, the commander of the 393rd Bomber Squadron, was promoted to serve as the new deputy group commander of the 509th. James Hopkins, his operations officer, was named the 509th’s group operations officer, leaving two slots open in the bomber squadron. Colonel Tibbets called me and matter-of-factly informed me, “Chuck, you’re the new commander of the 393rd.” I requested, and he agreed, to name my old friend and deputy John Casey to command the 320th Transport Squadron. I named George Marquart my operations officer for the 393rd. It was one hell of a day. I now had the position to go along with my responsibilities at the very moment when we were about to go into action.
As I later learned them in detail, the facts were that the extricated lieutenant colonel, who had been a holdover from the existing headquarters staff at Wendover when Paul Tibbets arrived, had seriously breached security by using our code name, Silverplate. The deputy group commander’s duties at the beginning required no particular skills related to the mission. But this lieutenant colonel was the kind of guy who had an inflated sense of his own value and, frankly, was pompous. For whatever reason, he had gone to Colorado Springs on an errand. While he was there, a junior officer didn’t respond either quickly enough or with the proper respect to something he wanted done. The lieutenant colonel, who did not have clearance to use our code name, invoked “Silverplate” as an important project he was attached to. This caused a flurry of activity. At any use of this highly secret code, our security people would be advised by security personnel at the scene. A serious breach had been committed over something inconsequential.
Since the lieutenant colonel had no special skill necessary to our mission, Tibbets could take decisive action. The incident also presented him with an opportunity to reinforce with every man in the outfit who might stray that regardless of rank or position, no one was above the strict rules of security. We could afford to lose an unessential officer without setting our progress back, unlike the problem Tibbets would have faced if a key pilot or technician had committed the indiscretion. The point was driven home by the immediate and public imposition of the penalty—banishment. Everyone would understand that if the deputy group commander could be dispatched to the frozen tundra of Alaska for the duration of the war, anyone could be similarly dispatched to oblivion. The lieutenant colonel was never spoken of again. Even fifty years later, his name is never mentioned.
We seemed stuck in place at Wendover. Curtis LeMay was mercilessly pounding Japan, city after city, his tactics of low-level, incendiary bombing proving very effective in destroying key Japanese industries. Even though Japan continued to produce significant military matériel and the Japanese will to fight on remained unbowed, we had to wonder if the 509th would be necessary after all. Maybe LeMay had been right. Maybe he could bomb the Japanese into submission and win the war.
As for the scientists, their confidence in the weapon seemed to be waning as they got closer to an actual test. They appeared to be mired in the minutia, looking for the perfect weapon. Of course, these observations are from a military man trained to act, not ponder. In all fairness, the scientists certainly had reason to doubt. No one could predict what the final package, assuming it worked at all, would produce. A big bang or a fizzle? And how big was big? Five tons of TNT? Twenty tons? Fifty tons? Global conflagration? Who knew? They couldn’t even tell us if we’d survive the blast at eight miles. And, of course, there were the fuses. Even if they worked, there was no certainty they wouldn’t detonate the bomb right under the airplane. This posited a good news-bad news scenario: “The bomb worked, but we lost the crew.” Unlocking the secrets of the universe is a tricky business.
There was so much we didn’t know. Such ignorance can oftentimes calcify into inaction. Sadly, as time passed, more Americans died. Only action on our part to deliver the weapon the scientists had developed—perfect or not—could help end the war. The bomb might have been a theoretical problem to solve, a blizzard of incomprehensible numbers spilling off a chalk-dusted blackboard, but the dead, dying, and crippled in the Pacific were real.
Colonel Tibbets sensed the stalling of momentum and seized the day. He knew that moving our personnel, equipment, and supplies overseas would be a time-consuming process. Some would go by air, but most would move by ship. Better to be in place and ready to go when the weapon was ready than to wait and then deploy to the Pacific, losing precious weeks. Invoking his broad authority and circumventing even the small circle of his superiors in this project, including General Leslie Groves, the overall commander of the entire Manhattan Project, Tibbets caused the orders for our deployment to be issued. He called Washington, spoke the magic words necessary to get the bureaucracy moving, and the wheels started to move. In spite of the flak I understood he took for overstepping his bounds, including a tongue-lashing from General Groves, he had gotten us on our way, and no one countermanded the orders.
Our destination was appropriately code-named Destination. What the name lacked in originality, it made up for in precision.
On May 6, 1945, twelve hundred of our support personnel boarded the troop ship S.S. Cape Victory at Seattle and sailed west. They would arrive three weeks later at Destination. The C-54 transports would set down on May 18. Finally, at the beginning of June, our fifteen B-29s would touch down at North Field to join our fellow comrades on Tinian Island, in the Marianas.
During our deployment, on May 8, the Germans surrendered. The elation felt by all Americans was short-lived as they realized that their soldiers who had survived years of war in North Africa and Europe were now being moved to staging areas in the Pacific for the final assault on Imperial Japan. It was expected that at least two million men would take part in the elaborate invasion of the Japanese home islands. In the Pentagon, the grim process of estimating dead and wounded already had begun.
Our young fighting men sailing across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, and into the deceptively tranquil Pacific, would have ample time to contemplate what lay before them.
Just a few weeks before the Germans surrendered, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. My generation had never known another leader. He had taken us through two back-to-back cataclysmic disasters unprecedented in American history—the Great Depression and World War II. With my Catholic upbringing, it seemed to me almost biblical that, like Moses, President Roosevelt would not be with his people in their moment of triumph. With the finish hopefully in sight, his death seemed a cruel blow to our nation. On hearing the news, I felt a hollowness, a need to deny that he was gone. Later, my feeling of unease was not lifted when I heard the tinny Midwestern twang of a man the nation and I barely knew. On April 12, 1945, at a little after seven P.M. eastern standard time, Harry S. Truman took the oath of office and became the thirty-third president of the United States.
History records that the first matter brought to the new president moments after he was sworn into office was delivered by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who informed the president that the United States was in the process of developing a new weapon of “almost unbelievable destructive power.”