His last assignment was on the Joint Staff. Subsequent assignments included work on the B-47 bomber and command of the Proof Test Division at Eglin AFB, Fla. Tibbets, the Enola Gay's pilot, hand-picked Ferebee for his crew and. 6, 1945, was carrying the world's first nuclear weapon. At the end of the war, Tibbets served as a technical advisor on the Bikini Bomb Project and, in 1947, served at the Air Staff in the directorate of requirements. He was unaware that the B-29 'Enola Gay' he was flying on Aug. He returned to the US in March 1943 to work on the B-29 program and, in September 1944, was placed in charge of developing an organization that would employ the atomic bomb in combat operations. On July 3, 1987, 42 years after dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets recalls his mindset during the fateful mission on August. ![]() Following assignments as an engineering officer, he took command of the 340th Bomb Squadron and flew 25 combat missions in B-17s over Europe and North Africa, where he led the first heavy bombardment mission, serving under British control. ![]() ![]() Tibbets entered the Army Air Corps in 1937 and, after graduating from pilot training in 1938, served first with the 16th Observation Squadron in Georgia. Tibbets Jr., who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay on its historic World War II flight to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan, credited with ending the war and saving thousands of American lives, died Nov.
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