However, on the day of the Nagasaki bombing, Bock switched planes with Charles W. The plane was named after Frederick Bock, the plane's commander. Adaptations included removing most of the armament installing heavier racks to support the heavy bomb and replacing the engines. Just as its counterpart the Enola Gay, the Bockscar had been altered to serve the purpose of carrying and deploying the heavy bomb. This marked only the second time in history that the atomic bomb had been used. On August 9, 1945, the Bockscar dropped an atomic bomb (the "Fat Man") on Nagasaki, instantly killing tens of thousands of people. There is one surviving WWI vet who saw action in the trenches (Harry Patch).Captain Beahan, Captain Van Pelt, Jr., First Lt. The loss of Tibbets means there is one less primary source about WWII (and about one of the most significant events in the war).
Its estimated by 2012 nearly 99% of all the WW2 vets will have passed. People readily forget exactly what all the Vet's of WW2 sacrificed for us. Be it German, Japanese, American, Canadian, Chinese, Australian, New Zealand, Russian, French and the dozens and dozens of other countries whom gave too much to make this world a little better than it was.īoth my grandfathers are still alive, but both are in the hospital, both with serious Alzihmers and not expected to live another year or two at the most. Both were a wealth of information (my father's dad served in the Merchant Marines in the Atlantic in WW2 and had his liberty ships sunk out from him a number of times, my mom's father is a Pearl Harbor survivor and served on destroyers in nearly every major Pacific battle). I hate that they don't much remember what happened to them 60+ years ago and they can't share what happened to them and the people around them.
I haven't been watching the current PBS series 'The War', but it's my understanding that what you describe is the main idea: WWII stories, told by front-line soldiers, unvarnished. In is was stuff they had never talked about with anyone, not even their families, because they came back long before the concept of PTSD or anything like that, and soldiers were supposed to just flip a switch and become regular people again after V-Day. I just finished watching the series last night. Just thinking about it is making me tear up a bit here at work (I will admit that I'm a sentimental bastard, and a weepy one at that). There is no way I can express the depth of gratitude for the sacrifice of these people on our behalf. An entire generation of men (Americans and otherwise) were trained as killers with the intent of protecting their families and their eventual descendants. Both of my grandfathers served in the war, but neither liked talking about it much. My dad's dad was a tank commander and a lieutenant in Italy and France. Once when my brother and I were young we asked him which side he fought on (as we knew we have a lot of German heritage, but not enough to know how recent it was). He said to us that he was one of the "bad guys," in a somewhat joking manner. Now, when I think about it, that statement holds so much more meaning. At one point a tank in his battalion (or whatever the proper term would be) shot a German tank and the occupants got out to flee. My grandfather got on his machine gun and mowed them down as they fled, all the while thinking about how they would do the same to him if the situations were reversed. Numerous times, he had to order his buddies to their likely deaths. I look back on his statement and think that no one in the war was a "good guy." They were all killers.