Paul Tibbets Dies At Age 92

Paul Tibbets Jr., the pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb, died this morning at his east Columbus home. A long-time Central Ohio resident, and a vocal Second Amendment supporter, Col. Tibbets was a fascinating man. I had a chance to visit with the 92-year-old gentleman last winter when he attended a PRO Gun Show in Columbus, and signed autographs for attendees. He had brought posters and books with him. He was supposed to be on hand for three to four hours. He ended up staying more than six hours due to the growing throng of people who wanted to meet him, shake his hand, and perhaps have their photograph taken with this individual they had only read about in history books.

People will long be divided on the actions of the U.S. that day in the skies over Hiroshima, Japan. In my humble opinion, Col. Tibbets' work and actions, and the actions of his crew, saved the life of my father, Eldon Greer, a medic with the 96th Infantry Division. Dad and the other boys in his division had seen horrific fighting during spearhead landings on Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. The 96th, like many other Infantry and Marine divisions, was slated for deployment to invade the home island of Japan. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war, and the need to invade the main island -- a plan that U.S. military and government leaders had predicted would result in a catastrophic loss of life to American G.I.s and Japanese civilians.

Tibbets, who left the service as a brigadier general, lived a quiet life after retirement from Executive Jet Aviation (now NetJets). Most people who passed him in the grocery had no idea who he was, and he wanted it that way.

I met and visited with Col. Tibbets while he took a break from signing books during the PRO show. He was a very likeable individual, much like anyone's grandpa. I had to thank him for his service for, perhaps, a selfish reason. I told him that I probably would not be on this Earth had it not been for his actions on that historic day in 1945. Then I told him where my dad had served, and thanked him again. Stammering, I was in awe of this man sitting behind the table. A simple man, a proud man, he looked directly into my eyes, put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and calmly replied, "I would do it again if I were asked to." His granddaughter, sitting next to him, smiled. She had surely heard this kind of conversation before. But he treated our conversation like it was the first time he had heard it. Many American men and women born in the baby boom years owe their existence to this very ordinary individual, who performed an extraordinary feat. Yet to hear him describe it, it was one of the most boring missions he ever flew. Boring or not, the mission of the Enola Gay flew this gentle man and his crew into the history books forever.

Col. Tibbets, wherever you are, I salute you one final time, and extend a heartfelt thank you for your service.

MEDIA COVERAGE: Read a story of Tibbets' passing and his life here. A story from the Associated Press in 2005, regarding the restoration of the Enola Gay, can be read here. WBNS 10tv in Columbus has one of the last video interviews with Col. Tibbets. Visit CNN's story on Tibbets' passing. Click here to visit the official Enola Gay website. In 2002, the UK's Guardian newspaper interviewed Tibbets for an anniversary story on the Hiroshima bombing. Former Chicago Tribune columnist, and Bexley, Ohio native, Bob Greene, spent a lot of time with Tibbets in the late 1990s as Greene prepared to write a book about his own father. Here is a CNN review of the book, "Duty: A Father, His Son and the Man Who Won The War." Retired Columbus Dispatch columnist Mike Harden talks to Tibbets' widow, Andrea, and looks back at the pilot's life of no regrets.