The last surviving member of the crew that dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, says he has no regrets about the mission which killed more than 150,000 people and effectively ended World War II.
"After 73 years, I do not regret what we did that day. All war's hell," Russell Gackenbach, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, told NPR’s "Radio Diaries" program. "The Japanese started the war; it was our turn to finish it."
Gackenbach, now 95, was the navigator of the assignment which was carried out by three strike planes: the Enola Gay, which held the bomb, and two observation aircraft, the Great Artiste and the Necessary Evil.
"I never heard the words 'atomic bomb.’ We were only told what we needed to know, and keep your mouth shut. We were told that once the explosion occurred, we should not look directly at it, that we should not go through the cloud," Gackenbach said.
After the blinding light of the blast, "things were very, very quiet. We just looked at each other; we didn't talk. We were all dumbfounded."
An estimated 80,000 people were killed instantly, while another 80,000 died from radiation effects of the bomb in the weeks, months and years ahead.
Three days after the Hiroshima mission, the U.S. bombed Nagasaki. On Aug. 15, Japan –which triggered the war with its attack on Pearl Harbor -- surrendered.
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