From Library Journal
Sweeney, the only person to fly both atomic bomb missions over Japan in 1945, wrote this account because "I [felt] outraged and betrayed when...our national museum, the Smithsonian exhibition,...attempted to change the history of the war." The Smithsonian exhibition initially questioned whether dropping of the bomb was justified. Sweeney starts off with a clumsy attempt to advertise himself, then partially succeeds in cultivating the excitement of "insider" knowledge of specific events, places, and times. Because Sweeney claims to have "hitched his star" to Col. Paul Tibbets, the mission commander and pilot of the Enola Gay, this volume serves to raise his visibility as second in command. He does not forcefully support his thesis of "righting a wrong" until the last chapter and appendix (involving testimony before a Senate committee). Ultimately, this book offers little new or startling information. Recommended only for pertinent collections.?Harry V. Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Sys., Iola
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
General (then Major) Sweeney was the pilot of
Bock's Car, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Like its target, the second atomic mission has never received a fraction of the attention given its predecessor, targeted at Hiroshima. This book begins to answer that situation. Sweeney, a Boston Irishman learning to fly at the time of Pearl Harbor, became acquainted with Paul Tibbetts, pilot of the Hiroshima mission, during test-pilot work on the B-29. Picked for the 509th Bombardment Wing, Sweeney eventually executed his mission, despite human error, mechanical failures, bad weather, fuel shortages, and a bomb that had to be armed
before takeoff. Much of this account adopts a tone of moral outrage over the current historical revisionism concerning the A-bomb. It reflects the consciousness in 1945 of ever-lengthening American casualty lists because of stubborn Japanese resistance that was expected to continue indefinitely. The revisionists may have a case, but Sweeney has one, too.
Roland Green
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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