The debate over how the war was won has continued. Navigator Theodore Dutch Van Kirk, bombardier Thomas Ferebee and radio operator Richard H. However, each event is experienced one person at a time, and each person has an individual story to tell. War affects governments and groups of people on such a large scale that it can be overwhelming. World War II was the largest human-made catastrophe in history, affecting almost every country in the world and touching the lives of every family in the United States. I think we saved thousands and thousands of lives.' - Vince Ortman. to usher in the Atomic Age is a dark-haired, twenty-nine-year-old full colonel named Paul W. We would have had to kill off all the Japanese, and there would have been a lot of Americans killed in the meantime. The Japanese were never going to give up unless we had something like that. 'I thought at the time and I still do, that we saved an awful lot of lives. (Germany, of course, had surrendered months earlier.) Nebraskans celebrated V-J Day wholeheartedly on August 15. Notice a space has been left for the name of the city. Crew of the Enola Gay, the infamous B-29 plane from which the first atom bomb was dropped. Like Tibbets, Ferebee never expressed regret for his role in the bombing, saying it was a job. Excerpt from announcing the dropping of the atomic bomb. Thomas Wilson Ferebee was the Bombardier aboard the Enola Gay.
