'If I see them on Tinian Island, what shall I tell them? "I understand you did your job during the war so I don't blame you. 'Sixty years ago maybe the pilots of the Enola Gay had to do that because it was their duty but, after all, they killed men and women, young and old, and even children and babies. I know that some of the pilots of the Enola Gay say, "If I was told to carry the A-bomb again I would do it, because that was our job." But I don't think I can welcome this opinion. Pressed on whether he would have done as Tibbets did, Mr Matsushima raised his hands and said: 'This time I will reject that. Do we have to thank them for dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima? I don't think so. If Japan had an A-bomb we might have dropped it into New York. This was during the war, when people become mad to kill the enemy. Would he have dropped the A-bomb? 'I tell American people I don't think we can blame you. It's very hard to win this war." At the same time I never believed in surrender either. Big smoke had covered the whole city, rising up, and I thought, "Hey, the Americans invented a real tough weapon. When I walked out of the city I could see both sides of the river burning phosphorus. 'All Japanese boys wanted to join the military in those days. When I think of these boys and girls, I can't stop the tears.'Īnd yet Mr Matsushima, whose brother, Kanngo, was a Zero fighter pilot, said he too had craved the fight against America. I saw many 12- and 13-year-old boys and girls heavily burnt among those victims. 'Without exception they stretched their arms out in front of them and were walking very slowly, marching like ghosts.
#Did the enola gay crew kill themselves skin
Their skin was peeling off and you could see red muscle.
![did the enola gay crew kill themselves did the enola gay crew kill themselves](https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb525-The-Atomic-Bomb-and-the-End-of-World-War-II/photos/enola-gay.jpg)
Their whole bodies had been smoked to almost charcoal and their clothes were singed or torn. Mr Matsushima, a fluent English speaker and frequent visitor to America, was at school in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945: 'I remember thinking, "Did they drop thousands and thousands of fire bombs in a moment?" People's hair was sticking up, or they had lost their hair. He is expected to come face to face with US veterans who crewed the warplane that day, though Tibbets himself cannot go due to ill health. The issue will be hard to duck on 6 August when Keijiro Matsushima, 76, a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb, visits Tinian Island, the US base in the Pacific, to commemorate the Enola Gay's flight 60 years before. Whether they would have done the same as Tibbets in his position is a question some cannot, or will not, answer. Yet many acknowledge that in 1945 they were ready to fight to the death with bamboo spears, and dreamt of joining Japan's military machine, perhaps as Zero fighter pilots, kamikaze suicide bombers. As might be expected, nearly all of them condemn the use of the A-bomb as unethical. Many of the Japanese children who felt the wrath of the bomb, Little Boy, when it exploded are still alive, too. The Enola Gay's mission over Hiroshima was so secret that Tibbets was given cyanide pills, one for each of the crew, so they could commit suicide if they fell into Japanese hands. General Paul Tibbets, who commanded the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress he named after his mother, is now 90 and living in Columbus, Ohio.