Customer Reviews

Enola Gay: Mission to Hiroshima

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This book is as real to life as possible in its discription of the events from Windover to Tinian and on to History. My grandfather served under Tibits and is pictured and mentioned several times in this book. As I turned the pages I was reading what I had heard first hand for several years from my grandfather spelled out across the pages. The attention to detail and recreation of the stories, events, and emotions capture the readers attention and draw you in. The various perspectives of the events also allows the reader to understand the magnitude of the bombings and the enourmous undertakingas that transpired prior to the event.

This is a must read for those who are interested in WWII History. I will pass this book along through the generations as the most accurate account of what transpired for my Grandfather and the men who served along side him.

From the very beginning this narrative grabs your attention. It wasn't until one hour away from Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, that Enola Gay's pilot, Paul W. Tibbets turned around and announced to his crew that they were about to drop the world's first atom bomb.

The crew was handpicked by Tibbets. Their training was so secret and compartmentalized that they didn't even discuss it among themselves. They all "knew", but they didn't "know" until they were told. Survivors of "Little Boy" were also interviewed for this story.

Another book recommend is Flight of the Enola Gay written by her pilot, Gen. Paul W. Tibbets. This is the story from his perspective. Excellent.

Michelle deBreuil Farrell - Military Aviation Photojournalist.

I read the authors Voyage of the Damned a long time ago and really enjoyed it. So when I found this book I had expectations. And they were easily met.

The authors take you along with Col. Tibbets and the rest of his squadron - through training, hellraising and more. The book reads like a novel even if it is based on well documented facts. They also cover both sides of the story including the experiences of Hiroshima survivors.

All in all a good and enjoyable read.

I found this book to be extremely interesting and the story line to be both fascinating and engrossing. As a consequence, even though I knew what the outcome would be (the ultimate destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the end of World War II) I couldn't wait to see how things would turn out. That statement may seem a little strange for a book which in essence simply delineates the events leading to the delivery of the first atomic bomb, but this book deals with the subject in a most unusual way.

It includes much detailed information which will surely be of interest to future historians (e.g. how the Manhattan Project worked to develop the bomb while, at the same time, Paul Tibbets and his 509th Composite Group trained to deliver it), but it keeps the reader's attention riveted by the manner in which it is presented. It does this by following three parallel story lines as events unfold: 1) what the scientists working on the Manhattan Project are doing, how things are progressing, and what their problems and concerns are; 2) what Paul Tibbets and the 509th Composite Group and its personnel are doing, how their training is going, and what their problems and concerns are; and 3) what various Japanese citizens and military personnel living in Hiroshima are doing, how they feel about the war, and what they are thinking.

I'm sure this book will be a prime source for future historians and scholars, but it is also a highly readable and engrossing story which is well worth reading. I highly recommend it.

The Pilot of "Enola Gay", offered up to a mutual friend here in Plano TX that this was to be the most accurate account of what Happened! The only other book to hit at this level, and more by a lot! Would be "American Promelthius". The incredible saga of J. ROBERT Oppenheimer and all that went on with "The Manhatten Project", right down to the first Nuclear test in the Valley of death! This blast in real life knocked my father and his uncle out of bed in Soccoro New Mexico. they were less than 100 miles from Ground zero. When my Dad shouted out to reporters that the blast knocked him out of bed, A viceral feeding frenzy sparked. The media was just getting aquainted with this new weapon! Great book if it interest you.

In August, 1939, shortly before the start of WWII in Europe, Albert Einstein warned FDR of the recent 'nuclear research' with the ability to make powerful bombs out of uranium, discovered by Marie Curie. He informed the President that secret work was going on in Germany on this project.

As a result of Einstein's advice, the Manhattan Project took off in October, 1942 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, just a few miles from the town of Knoxville. Robert Oppenheimer whose work at the University of Chicago in splitting the atom was chosen as the director. He used the knowledge he has amassed from Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller to develop the atom bomb out of uranium and plutonium. More about this in the review about Oak Ridge, coming up.

It was the plane 'Enola Gay' which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and the pilot reportedly went insane out of remorse for what he had been forced to do. It was in retaliation for the burning of a hotel in Japan by them full of our American POWs who were trapped and burned to death in the inferno. Truman made the decision to drop the bomb, which infuriated me no end until, just a few years, Naomi Blanco did a review for the Magazine Club about the hotel diaster. She is from Cuba. The co-authors of this book obey one edict: "get both sides" for all stories. They have written RUIN FROM THE AIR, THE DAY THE BUBBLE BURST, PONTIFF and THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED. Gordon Thomas has also written GIDEON'S SPIES, SEEDS OF FIRE and JOURNEY INTO MADNESS.