Tibbets wanted to be cremated, with no funeral or grave marker left to inspire protests. You use anything at your disposal,' he was quoted as saying in 1975. 'You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. The Associated Press reports that Tibbets, who retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966, had no regrets about his role in the world's first atomic airstrike. This website has photographs of the devastation the bombs wrought before they forced the Japanese government to surrender to Allied forces led by Gen. As many as 200,000 people may have been killed within five years by the blast and its aftereffects, according to the Energy Department. Tibbets dropped an atomic bomb known as 'Little Boy' over Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:16 a.m.
Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, died today. Paul Tibbets, the pilot who ushered in the nuclear era, helping to end World War II, is dead at age 92.
