The failure to achieve results with daylight, high-altitude, precision bombing in the unique operational environment over Japan led to a switch to low-level, nighttime, firebombing raids. The nationwide effort to manufacture the technologically-sophisticated B-29 included factories in Washington, Kansas, Nebraska, and Georgia turning out complete aircraft and thousands of sub-contractors producing smaller components and equipment.Īfter a long and challenging development phase, the B-29s of the 20th Air Force went into combat against Imperial Japan in June 1944 from bases in India and China and in November 1944 from the Mariana Islands. It also had advanced tricycle landing gear and was the first bomber to have an analog computer-controlled defensive armament system and a pressurized and heated fuselage that meant the 11-person crew did not have to wear oxygen masks and heavy, bulky clothing during long missions. Designed to fly farther, faster, and higher than any other bomber, the combination of the B-29’s aerodynamic, structural, and propulsion innovations allowed it to carry 5,000 pounds of bombs to a target 1,500 miles away while cruising at 220 miles per hour at altitudes up to 30,000 feet. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the most advanced propeller-driven airplane in the world in 1945, making it the ultimate definition of a “modern” airplane. As a new and deadly weapon, an atomic bomber, Enola Gay facilitated a turning point in human history as it ushered in the dawn of the Atomic Age and the threat of nuclear war. The delivery system for these bombs, the Superfortress, represented the latest advances in American aeronautical engineering and bomber design, and its use in the skies over Japan reflected the evolution of strategic bombing doctrine. Another atomic attack on Nagasaki followed three days later. Only four members of the Enola Gay crew are still living: Tibbets, navigator Ted Van Kirk, weapons officer Morris Jeppson and radio operator Richard Nelson.On August 6, 1945, the crew of a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare, called “Little Boy,” on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. His survivors include his wife, Mary Ann Conrad Ferebee, and four sons. After two years of flying school in the Army Air Corps, he was assigned to be a bombardier.
His decorations included the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Bronze Star.Ī native of Mocksville, N.C., Ferebee wanted to be a professional baseball player as a youth but joined the Army in 1940. He flew aboard B-47s during the Cold War and B-52s as an observer during the Vietnam War. I wanted the bomb to work and end the war.”Īfter World War II, Ferebee served as a deputy commander for maintenance in several B-47 Stratojet bomber wings. “People have to go back and study the history of the war and the attitude of the people at that time,” he said. “I’m sorry an awful lot of people died from that bomb, and I hate to think that something like that had to happen to end the war,” he said on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Years later, Ferebee said he never felt guilty about dropping the bomb but felt regret about the death toll. Japan surrendered five days after that, on Aug.
Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb took 43 seconds to fall and make its mark on history. Ferebee, then 26 and a veteran of 64 combat missions, slept most of the way to Hiroshima and didn’t hear Tibbets explain to the rest of the crew what they were carrying. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay took off for a 13-hour flight to Japan with the first nuclear weapon ever deployed. Paul Tibbets, served with Ferebee in the European campaign, handpicked him for his crew and called him “the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bomb site.” bombing raid on Nazi-occupied France in 1942 and was the lead bombardier for the Allies’ first 100-plane daylight raid in Europe. In addition to the Hiroshima attack, Ferebee was along on the first U.S. He was 81.Ī career Air Force officer who retired as a colonel in 1970, Ferebee participated in a number of historic bombing runs during the war, first in North Africa, then in Europe and finally the Pacific.
Thomas Wilson Ferebee, the bombardier in the crew of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War II, died Thursday in Windermere, Fla.