He was also interviewed in the 1970s British documentary series The World at War. In 1995, he called a planned 50th anniversary exhibition of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution, putting the bombing in context of the suffering it caused, a “damn big insult”.Īn interview of Paul Tibbets can be seen in the 1982 movie Atomic Cafe. government formally apologized when Japan complained. Tibbets said it was not meant as an insult, but the U.S. In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing at an air show in Texas. After retirement, he worked for Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus, Ohio-based air taxi company, and was president from 1976 until he retired in 1987. In the 1960s, Tibbets was posted as military attaché in India, but this posting was rescinded after all political parties in India protested his presence. Tibbets was promoted to Brigadier General. Tibbets married his wife, Andrea, in about 1953 or 1954. The film was called, “Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb.” Tibbets was also portrayed in the films Day One and The Beginning or the End. In 1980, a made-for-television movie aired, again telling a possibly more fictionalized version of the story of Tibbets and his men, with Patrick Duffy Bobby Ewing from “Dallas” playing the part of Tibbets and Kim Darby as Lucy. The film Above and Beyond 1952 depicted the World War II events involving Tibbets, with Robert Taylor starring as Tibbets and Eleanor Parker as his first wife, Lucy. The atomic bomb, codenamed Little Boy, was dropped over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay departed Tinian Island in the Marianas with Tibbets at the controls at 2:45 a.m.
On August 5, 1945, Colonel Paul Tibbets formally named B-29 serial number 44-86292 Enola Gay after his mother she was named after the heroine, Enola, of a novel her father had liked. In September 1944 he was selected to command the project at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, that became the 509th Composite Group, in connection with the Manhattan Project’s Project Alberta. “By reputation”, Tibbets was “the best flier in the Army Air Force”. Based at RAF Polebrook, he piloted the lead bomber on the first Eighth Air Force bombing mission in Europe on August 17, 1942, and later flew combat missions in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations until returning to the U.S. Tibbets was named commanding officer of the 340th Bomb Squadron, 97th Heavy Bomb Group flying B-17 Flying Fortresses in March, 1942. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1938 and received his wings at Kelly Field, Texas. On February 25, 1937, he enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. He attended the University of Florida, Gainesville and was an initiated member of the Epsilon Zeta Chapter of Sigma Nu Fraternity in 1934. In about 1927, the family moved to Florida.
The family was listed there in the 1920 U.S. Although born in Illinois, Tibbets was raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his father was a confections wholesaler. Tibbets was born in Quincy, Illinois, and was the son of Paul Warfield Tibbets and Enola Gay Tibbets nee Haggard.