The World War II Chronicles Page 7
In the summer of 1944, Tibbets reported at Wendover, and quickly arranged for some of his old flying companions to join him and become key members of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron. This was the section of the 509th to be entrusted with the actual delivery of the weapon. Among Tibbet’s friends were Major Tom Ferebee, a mustachioed bombardier who had been with him during the trying days in England, and Dutch Van Kirk who had navigated for him over Europe. Others were called upon because of their work with Tibbets on the B-29 modification program in the United States: Bob Lewis, an excellent pilot, and Major Chuck Sweeney, who had probably flown the B-29 more than anyone else. Earlier in the summer Sweeney had been stationed at Grand Island, Nebraska, to train pilots in handling the new bomber—among them, General Curtis Lemay, who later commanded the initial super-bomber effort in the Pacific. Sweeney was a cherubic-faced, heavyset Irishman from Boston, a man of great ability and personal charm who quickly attracted the affection and respect of those who worked under him. Under the direction of Colonel Tibbets, Major Sweeney was to train one of the crews: Number 15.
Crew 15 was formed in the fall of 1944. The navigator was Jim Van Pelt, a handsome, sensitive West Virginian who had washed out as a pilot but was graduated from Navigation School in September of 1942. He had become friends with Tom Ferebee at a dice table at Ardmore, Oklahoma, and it was through Ferebee that he came to Wendover. At his suggestion, Kermit Beahan also came from Ardmore with him. Beahan was a bombardier, a tremendously efficient technician known to his fellow airmen as “The Great Artiste.” He was a Texas boy, an authentic hero from the skies of Europe where he had been shot down several times and on one occasion had saved a tail gunner’s Me by administering oxygen during a raid.
Captain Don Albury was another B-29 pilot whose superb flying skills were obvious to Tibbets and Sweeney. This native of Miami, Florida, was called by some of his contemporaries the “most competent twenty-five-year-old” they had ever known. The father of one child, Albury was especially popular with the enlisted men, who continually brought their problems to him.
Lieutenant Fred Olivi served as copilot or third pilot on the crew. A bulky Italian boy of twenty-three from Chicago, he neither smoked nor drank and was therefore the object of much good-natured ribbing from his fellow officers.
There were five enlisted men in the crew. Master Sergeant John Kuharek was the only Regular Army man on board, a veteran of fourteen years’ service and an extremely competent engineer. The radio operator was Sergeant Abe Spitzer, born in the Bronx and an old-timer of thirty-five. The gunner and assistant engineer was Sergeant Ray Gallagher, the youngest of the group at twenty-three. Sergeant Pappy Dehart, the tail gunner, was a sad-eyed Texan who passionately hated the army and loved farming but performed his duties competently and without complaint. Sergeant Ed Buckley operated the radar along with Van Pelt. He also doubled as mechanic, radio operator and general handyman.
The 509th Group held the highest priority rating in the matter of securing the necessary tools for the task ahead. Fourteen new B-29’s disappeared from the rolls of various Air Force installations. Generals who raised loud voices in complaint at the transfers from their squadrons were silenced by phone. The top Air Force man in Washington, General Hap Arnold, had given the word that there was good reason for the action.
Under Tibbets’ direction a number of plane crews initiated curious flights out over the western part of the United States. Each aircraft took one large, bulbous bomb aloft, always to an altitude of more than thirty thousand feet. Bombardiers released them over painted white circles on the desert floor. Immediately the planes turned sharply at a 60-degree angle, then came around in an arc of 156½ degrees.
Toward the end of the training period, dummy weapons were filled with high explosives. At all times the bomb drops were photographed from bomb bays and other planes in order to record the efficiency of each bomb’s external configuration. (Wendover’s personnel included twenty-seven scientists working on the ballistics phase of the superweapon.) Although Crew 15 constantly speculated on the purpose of the unvarying method of attack and maneuver, no one ever guessed at the purpose of the special training.
Security regulations at Wendover were stringent to an extreme. Special agents followed men on leave into neighboring cities and eavesdropped on their conversations. One high-ranking officer who revealed too much information in a casual meeting at another Air Force base returned to Wendover to find his bags packed and his orders for transfer processed. He spent the rest of the war near the Arctic Circle. A few men of the 509th were gradually made aware of the nature of the project. Chuck Sweeney was driven into the desert one day and told of it. But the vast majority remained uninformed.
By January 1945, most of the 509th Group had moved to Cuba for two months as part of a plan to train the unit as a completely self-sustaining entity capable of moving by itself over a long distance. There, crews were also able to practice radar bombing over water areas as preparation for the eventual move to the Pacific.
The base they would occupy in the Mariana Islands had already been chosen by Commander Fred Ashworth of the Navy, who, in February, had gone to Guam to see Admiral Chester Nimitz. In a money belt the commander carried a letter signed by Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, which revealed the story of the atomic bomb and gave Ashworth the highest priority. Nimitz had been curious about the new unit detailed to come into his area, but Ashworth’s arrival ended his confusion.
The commander then chose the northwest corner of Tinian as headquarters for the 509th Group. Several factors weighed heavily in making his decision: the Seabees were transforming the coral table into an unshakable aircraft carrier; Tinian was one hundred miles closer to Japan than Guam, and the great weight of the bomb might make that shorter distance crucial to the success of the flights; Tinian also had better harbor facilities.
Back in the United States, the Manhattan Engineering District was moving at an accelerated pace during the spring of 1945. The plants at Oak Ridge and Hanford were operating. U-235 and plutonium were being produced in small quantities. As two designs for the bomb became finalized each was given a nickname. The narrow uranium bomb was called “Thin Man” for Roosevelt, as opposed to the bulbous plutonium bomb which was named “Fat Man” after Churchill. Choice of these nicknames was more than casual. It was believed that if messages concerning Thin Man and Fat Man were monitored, the eavesdropper would assume that the names actually referred to Roosevelt and Churchill. In its final stage, the gun barrel of the Thin Man was shortened, and it was thereafter known as “Little Boy.”
Theoretical tests left little doubt that the uranium bomb would work. Little Boy would not need to be tested before the actual detonation over Japan. The problem at the moment was to provide enough U-235 to explode the weapon.
The plutonium bomb, however, still had to be test fired. No one was completely sure that Fat Man would detonate. In the desert of New Mexico, scientists planned to set up a tower to hold a device containing a tiny amount of the metal for testing.
In March 1945, the 509th returned from Cuba to practice again over the western part of the United States. Cameras recorded each free fall of the tear-shaped bombs to make sure of the design. Chuck Sweeney and Don Albury wheeled their B-29 over in fast turns as before. They flew the ship for great distances while Jim Van Pelt obtained extensive experience navigating the plane alone.
In the spring, the 509th began to leave its desolate home. Eight hundred men sailed out of Seattle in May and the advance air echelon left shortly afterward.
Though the war in Europe ended on May 8, fighting in the Pacific was becoming increasingly brutal. The 509th Group now embarking for Tinian from the West Coast hopefully would bring that conflict to an abrupt end. But Harry Truman would face a grave decision because of what the 509th was training to accomplish.
On June 18, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., President Truman had talked with his military and civilian advisers:
TRUMAN
:
As I understand it, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after weighing all the possibilities of the situation and considering all possible alternative plans, are still of the unanimous opinion that the Kyushu operation [invasion of Japan] is the best solution under the circumstances.
ANSWER:
That is correct.
TRUMAN:
Mr. Stimson, what is your opinion?
STIMSON:
I agree that there is no other choice.… I do think that there is a large submerged class in Japan who do not favor the present war and whose full opinion and influence have not yet been felt.… I feel something should be done to arouse them and to develop any possible influence they might have before it becomes necessary to come to grips with them.
Truman asked Admiral William Leahy for his views:
LEAHY:
I do not agree with those who say that unless we obtain the unconditional surrender of the Japanese that we will have lost the war. I fear no menace from Japan in the foreseeable future, even if we are unsuccessful in forcing unconditional surrender. What I do fear is that our insistence on unconditional surrender will only result in making the Japanese more desperate and thereby increase our casualty lists. I don’t think this is at all necessary.
TRUMAN:
… I don’t feel that I can take any action at this time to change public opinion on the matter.… I am quite sure that the Joint Chiefs should proceed with the Kyushu operation.
As the meeting was adjourned, Truman asked John McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, to add his comments before leaving. McCloy said that all the talk of invading Japan struck him as rather “fantastic.” The secretary asked, “Why not use the atomic bomb?”
The meeting was once more called to order and McCloy’s remark was discussed. Truman listened intently as the men at the table argued the merits of first warning the Japanese to surrender and then using the new weapon if the enemy ignored the ultimatum. The dialogue broke down because of one basic truth. No one in the room knew whether the device being readied in New Mexico would actually work. Without that knowledge, strategy was pointless. Truman again affirmed his approval of the invasion of Kyushu.
Crew 15 lingered at Wendover until late in June. Sweeney, now commanding officer of the 393rd Squadron, was issued a new plane, serial number AC 44-27353, a highly modified B-29 incorporating the latest improvements. Besides fuel injection engines, the plane had reversible pitch propellers, which acted as brakes on landing. These would save the lives of the entire crew one day.
On June 21, Chuck Sweeney took his men out of Utah for the last time. He flew them to Hawaii for a few hours in the sun and surf. On the next morning he had the B-29 blessed by a Catholic priest before taking off to the southwest. On June 27, Sweeney brought the huge silver plane down on the runway of North Field at Tinian.
There, the Seabees had performed a miracle. The island had changed markedly since Fred Ashworth first visited it in February. Hundreds of B-29’s sat at hardstands in row after gleaming row. Wide asphalt roads were laid out to correspond with the street plan of New York City. There was a Broadway, a Forty-second Street and an Eighth Avenue. The 509th made its home in upper Manhattan.
Tinian was a white coral rock. It was also a lush tropical island on which the Japanese had cultivated a thriving sugar cane business. Natives from Korea and Okinawa had been brought to the island to labor in the fields and mills. Now some of them hid in the hills too frightened to surrender. With Japanese soldiers, they sometimes raided the garbage cans at North Field in order to stay alive. The men of the 509th tried to ignore the possibility of being killed by one of these scavengers as they entered their final training.
Security had dictated that this group be isolated from the other fighting units based on Tinian. Surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, the men of the secret outfit endured mounting criticism from airmen flying to Japan every week and losing their friends to Japanese fire.
Occasionally one plane from the 509th went out over the ocean on a long distance familiarization mission against an enemy-held island. It carried a single orange high-explosive bomb, dubbed “Pumpkin,” which was dropped and detonated in the air above the target. Some of the men in the planes wondered openly whether the Pumpkin was the only reason for all the specialized training in the past year. They hoped not.
In the meantime, the airmen on Tinian acquainted themselves with their new home. They swam, kibitzed at card games, drank beer, read, did the things that men do with time on their hands. Kermit Beahan managed to persuade Fred Olivi to take his first drink. The results were disastrous and Olivi spent several days in bed. Tom Ferebee constructed a “professional” dice table and gamblers stayed at it for eight hours at a time. The men had movies nightly; the officers could buy a fifth of liquor a week at $1.30 a bottle.
Mostly they wondered among themselves when the big mission would come. Few were aware of the tension building around them.
On July 16, as Crew 15 dawdled in front of their Quonset huts or swam in the ocean, the experimental plutonium bomb had exploded in the New Mexican desert. In an appalling burst of heat, man had liberated that very energy which, through eons of time, lights the stars.
Three men had lain face down as the white light engulfed them. Leslie Groves, Vannevar Bush and James B. Conant had looked at each other and silently clasped hands as they beheld their creation born of urgent dreams and grown to terrifying reality in seconds.
In Potsdam, Germany, Secretary of War Henry Stimson received the following dispatch from his assistant in Washington:
SECRETARY OF WAR FROM HARRISON
DOCTOR HAS JUST RETURNED MOST ENTHUSIASTIC AND CONFIDENT THAT THE LITTLE BOY IS AS HUSKY AS HIS BIG BROTHER. THE LIGHT IN HIS EYES DISCERNIBLE FROM HERE TO HIGHHOLD AND I COULD HAVE HEARD HIS SCREAMS FROM HERE TO MY FARM.
Highhold was Stimson’s summer place on Long Island, 250 miles from Washington; Harrison’s farm was fifty miles away in Virginia.
Stimson was elated. Though he had continually wrestled with the moral implications of the weapon, he never wavered from his determination to end the war with it, if necessary. In writing to his wife after the New Mexico test explosion, he said he had just had “good news from my baby at home.” On the morning of July 17 he told the good news to President Truman in the “Little White House” at Babelsburg outside Potsdam, and urged that the Japanese be duly warned of the utter destruction that awaited them if they continued the war.
Success of the plutonium bomb test and the power potential it established produced a marked change in American attitudes. Prime Minister Churchill later noted that from July 17 on, Truman, the novice in Big Three meetings, seemed to lose any feelings of inferiority he might have possessed in the company of Stalin and himself. As their meetings continued, when the Russian leader balked at certain proposals, Truman would cut him short and show an aggressiveness which Churchill found “stimulating.”
One of the major items on the agenda at Potsdam had been the inclusion of Russia as a belligerent in the Pacific war at the earliest possible moment. By agreement at Yalta, Stalin was committed to entering the war within three months after the end of hostilities in Europe. With the deadline only a few weeks away, General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, wanted Russian troops to invade Manchuria so that Japanese soldiers would be drawn off from the Home Islands. As of July 16, the need for Soviet help in Asia completely evaporated. The war could be won without it.
President Truman knew this. Already disenchanted with Stalin, he wanted no part of a Red claim that their armies had broken the back of Japanese resistance. Nor did he relish the prospect of coping with Stalin’s intrigues in newly liberated lands on the Asia mainland. Nevertheless, he realized there was no way to keep the Soviets out of the war if they wanted to honor the letter of the agreement at Yalta and attack Japan in August. He merely stopped pressing for their pledge and awaited developments in the coming weeks. The cynical round of talks at Potsdam continued.
Dulles found Stimson a harried man, immersed in the myriad details of the conference. He showed only slight interest in Dulles’ story.
Both men were well aware of the deteriorating situation in Japan. Dulles had been able to gain access to Japanese cablegrams sent to Germany before the Nazi regime fell. Through an agent working at the German Foreign Office, he had read many dispatches sent from Tokyo to Japanese attachés in Berlin. The messages outlined the grave state of affairs in the Far East.
Stimson had read intercepted telegrams from Foreign Minister Togo to Ambassador Sato in Moscow. He and Truman had discussed the fact that the Japanese seemed to be looking for a way out, though on the basis of several conditions. The American leaders wondered whether the Japanese had other motives behind these apparent peace feelers. For in the United States, the Combined Intelligence Committee, a group which reported to Truman on enemy capabilities, had issued a study on the situation: