Enola Gay

by Gordon Thomas

  Lewis was to bomb a factory complex at Koriyama; Captain Frederick Bock was to drop his ten-thousand-pound blockbuster on Osaka; Eatherly was to bomb the railway sidings at Maizuru; others were to attack targets at Kobe, Shimoda, Ube, Nagoya, Wakayama, and Hitachi. Ferebee, like Tibbets, had been forbidden to fly over Japan until the atomic mission.

  For this mission, Lewis would be flying Sweeney’s airplane, nicknamed the Great Artiste, while his usual B-29 was given a special inspection and servicing by group technicians. Van Kirk was taking the place of Lewis’s regular navigator. The changes made Lewis uneasy.

  The briefing was routine. Antiaircraft fire would probably be “moderate to light.” Van Kirk spoke to the navigators about routes to the targets, where they planned to arrive, as usual, around nine in the morning. Then, trucks took the crews to their planes.

  The Straight Flush was the first to take off. Eatherly was bent on making a record flight to Japan and back in order to resume an unfinished poker game.

  Minutes later, Bock’s Car, commanded by Captain Frederick Bock, trundled down the runway.

  Next, it was the turn of Major James Hopkins in Strange Cargo. Lewis watched the four engines spin into life. Then Strange Cargo moved from its apron.

  Suddenly, there was a rasping sound of metal grinding on metal. The bomb-bay doors of Strange Cargo were slowly forced open, their reinforced-steel hinges screeching under the pressure.

  Hopkins brought the plane to a stop and, with a sickening thud, Strange Cargo’s blockbuster dropped onto the asphalt.

  Lewis stared boggle-eyed at the huge bomb a few feet away. If it exploded, it would destroy everything within several hundred yards.

  Quietly, Lewis warned his crew of what had happened. Over the radio he could hear Hopkins calling the control tower for help. In moments, the sound of crash trucks, ambulances, and MP jeeps filled the air.

  The control officer told Lewis and Hopkins to keep their crews on board; the slightest jar might detonate the ten-thousand-pound blockbuster.

  Portable searchlights were focused on the runway. Through binoculars, firemen and armorers studied the bright-orange bomb, its fins bent and twisted from its fall.

  The firemen were the first to move in. They blanketed the blockbuster with foam, which they hoped would help deaden any explosion.

  A volunteer gang of armorers pushed a dolly and winch crane under the gaping belly of the plane. Working in total silence, they gently placed shackles around the bomb and cranked it up, inch by inch. Then they slid the dolly under the bomb. A small tractor was backed into position, the dolly hooked up and towed away.

  A relieved voice from the control tower told both crews they could relax.

  Lewis bellowed a characteristic reply. “Like hell! We got a mission to fulfill!”

  Within minutes, the engines of Great Artiste thundered into life. Without giving Strange Cargo a second look, Lewis and his crew took off on their night flight to Koriyama.

  21

  Six days previously, General Carl Spaatz had arrived in Washington, D.C., from Europe on his way to the Pacific to assume command of the Strategic Air Forces, newly created for the impending invasion of Japan. After Groves had briefed him on the atomic bomb, Spaatz, a graying, lean-faced Pennsylvania Dutchman, had faced General Thomas T. Handy, acting chief of staff while Marshall was in Potsdam, and stubbornly insisted that “if I’m going to kill 100,000 people I’m not going to do it on verbal orders. I want a piece of paper.”

  The document was drafted by Groves on July 23. It was then transmitted to the Little White House in Potsdam for approval—immediately granted. The document had been prepared by Handy and, on July 25, handed to Spaatz.

  When Spaatz arrived on Guam, his new chief of staff, LeMay, suggested that he hold an immediate meeting with the key personnel involved in the atomic mission. Spaatz agreed, and assembled now, on July 29, in LeMay’s office were LeMay, Tibbets, Parsons, Blanchard, and LeMay’s senior meteorologist. The exact date of the first mission would depend on his forecast of “a good bombing day,” when there would be a maximum of three-tenths cloud cover and favorable winds over Japan.

  Spaatz read the order aloud.

  To: General Carl Spaatz, CG, USASAF:

  1. The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb.

  2. Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those listed above.

  3. Dissemination of any and all information concerning the use of the weapon against Japan is reserved to the Secretary of War and the President of the United States. No communiques on the subject of releases of information will be issued by commanders in the field without specific prior authority. Any news stories will be sent to the War Department for special clearance.

  4. The foregoing directive is issued to you by direction and with the approval of the Secretary of War and of the Chief of Staff, USA. It is desired that you personally deliver one copy of this directive to General MacArthur and one copy to Admiral Nimitz for their information.

  Signed: Thos. T. Handy,

  General, G.S.C.

  Acting Chief of Staff

  At last, America’s senior soldier in the Pacific, MacArthur, was to be told about the revolutionary weapon.

  Spaatz folded the document and placed it back in his briefcase. “Gentlemen,” he asked, “are your preparations on schedule?”

  The men around the table nodded. Parsons then read a memorandum he had just received from Oppenheimer in Los Alamos.

  Following the Alamogordo test, Oppenheimer had calculated that the energy release from the bomb to be dropped on Japan would be in the region of twelve thousand to twenty thousand tons, and the blast should be equivalent to that from eight thousand to fifteen thousand tons of TNT.

  It would take nearly two thousand B-29s, carrying full loads of conventional high-explosive bombs, to match one atomic bomb. Even now, after almost a year with the Manhattan Project, Tibbets found such a thought “just awesome.”

  Perhaps Oppenheimer felt the same when he wrote his memo to Parsons. In it, after mentioning the bomb would probably be fuzed to go off 1,850 feet above the target city, he stated:

  It is not expected that radioactive contamination will reach the ground. The Ball of Fire should have a brilliance which should persist longer than at Trinity [Alamogordo] since no dust should be mixed with it. In general, the visible light emitted by the unit should be even more spectacular. Lethal radiation will, of course, reach the ground from the bomb itself.

  Oppenheimer ended his memo: “Good luck.”

  The meeting in LeMay’s office concluded with the introduction of two further code names. LeMay was to be known as “Cannon”; General Farrell, on route to Guam to function as the senior representative of the Manhattan Project in the Marianas, would be “Scale.”

  As he flew back to Tinian with Parsons, whose code name was “Judge,” Tibbets mused that if he had a choice of pseudonym, he would like to be known as “Justice.”

  Soon after returning to Tinian, Tibbets was again out on the runway, waiting to greet his crews as they returned from their solo missions to Japan.

  None had been hit by flak. The weather over the targets was reasonable, and each aircraft had been able to bomb visually.

  When Lewis landed, Tibbets congratulated him and his men for not being unnerved by the experience with the errant bomb just before takeoff. Lewis took the opportunity to remind his commander, “My crew is the best you’ve got.”

  There the
n occurred a short conversation whose meaning Tibbets and Lewis would later dispute.

  Although Lewis had expected to drop the first new weapon with “his crew” in “his plane,” Tibbets had already told him that van Kirk and Ferebee would be going along. Lewis did not like the idea but had come to accept it, viewing van Kirk’s flight with him today as confirmation of the plan.

  Now, according to Lewis, Tibbets told him that he, Lewis, “would be flying the mission.” Lewis took that to mean that he would be the aircraft commander.

  Tibbets would not deny that he made the remark, but he would differ radically from Lewis in interpreting it: “Lewis would fly as copilot; van Kirk and Ferebee would replace his usual navigator and bombardier. It was clear to anybody that on such a mission I had to be in the driver’s seat.”

  22

  Aboard submarine I.58, shortly before midnight, the officer of the watch awakened Lieutenant Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto from his catnap and reported all was well. Hashimoto told him he thought “it was going to be a good night for hunting.”

  The previous day at 2:00 P.M., Hashimoto had sighted a tanker escorted by a destroyer. Judging it unwise to approach close enough to use conventional torpedoes, he had decided instead to launch two of his six kaitens. After quickly saying good-bye to Hashimoto, each suicide pilot had climbed through a hatch from I.58 into his torpedo, lashed to the mother submarine’s deck. When Hashimoto heard the young officers shout over the intercom, “Three cheers for the emperor,” he knew they were ready to be launched. In poor visibility, the kaitens had steered toward the tanker. Hashimoto tracked them through his periscope until the rain blotted them out. He waited. Then, faint but unmistakable, came the sound of explosions. Hashimoto guessed the tanker had been hit, but not being absolutely sure, he had logged it as a “probable.”

  After leading the crew in prayers for the departed kaiten pilots, Hashimoto had set course for “the crossroads,” the intersection of American shipping lanes connecting Guam with Leyte in the Philippine Islands, and Okinawa with Peleliu in the Palau Islands.

  The crossroads was exactly six hundred miles from Guam. The I.58 had reached there earlier this Sunday; the sea was calm, and the submarine had remained surfaced for most of the day. Toward evening, visibility had dropped as mist drifted over the area. Hashimoto had ordered the submarine to submerge until moon-rise, at about 11:00 P.M.

  Now, having completed his prayers at the ship’s shrine, Hashimoto ordered night action stations. As the chief engineer increased speed to three knots, the crew moved to a state of alert.

  Hashimoto ordered the submarine up to sixty feet and sent the night periscope hissing upward to break the Pacific surface. After adjusting the eyepiece, he swept the quarters of the compass. The moon was some twenty degrees high in the east, and there were a few scattered clouds.

  He ordered the submarine brought to within ten feet of the surface. “Stand by type-thirteen radar.”

  The mechanism for detecting aircraft rose just above the swell. Its operator reported no sign of planes.

  “Stand by type-twenty-two radar.”

  The surface radar, which indicated the presence of other vessels within a three-mile radius of I.58, rose out of the water. From past experience, Hashimoto knew that the device was capable of mistaking driftwood, shoals of fish, and outcrops of rock for ships.

  Only when the operator was satisfied that the vicinity was empty did the captain give his next order. “Stand by to surface.”

  Hashimoto lowered the periscope handles. “Blow main ballast.”

  High-pressure air entered the main tanks, expelling the last of the water and sending the boat swiftly to the surface.

  As soon as the deck was awash, Hashimoto ordered the conning-tower hatch opened. The signalman and navigator climbed up to the bridge with the watch officer, and each began looking through high-powered night binoculars.

  Below, in the control room, Hashimoto kept watch through the night periscope; the operator of the surface radar continued monitoring.

  The routine was broken by the navigator’s shout from the bridge. “Bearing red-nine-zero degrees. Possible enemy ship!”

  Hashimoto lowered the periscope. “Action stations!”

  The alarm bells rang and the crew ran to their battle stations as Hashimoto bounded up the ladder to the bridge. Peering through his binoculars, he could see in the moonlight a black spot clearly visible on the horizon. He leaped for the ladder shouting, “Dive!”

  The bridge watch shinnied down behind him; the hatch was slammed shut. The main vents were opened, and I.58 crash-dived, with Hashimoto glued to the night periscope so as not to lose sight of the target.

  It was the Indianapolis.

  The aged cruiser had sailed from Tinian on Thursday, July 26, having safely delivered her mysterious cargo. After stopping at Guam, the Indianapolis had headed for Leyte in the Philippines; from there, it was likely she would be ordered back to San Francisco to collect more nuclear material.

  This Sunday at sea had followed a familiar pattern: morning church service on the fantail, no smoking until after the service was over, and no work before the noonday meal was served.

  By evening, the small chop of the sea had increased to a rough swell, but not enough to affect the standard zigzag course the ship was following. Its engines were phased to produce staggered turns on her four screws, ensuring an uneven pattern of sounds to hamper any enemy submarines listening to hydrophones.

  At dusk, Captain McVay had told the watch officer that the ship need not zigzag after twilight.

  At 10:30 P.M., with visibility still poor, McVay had signed the night orders; they contained no request to resume zigzagging if the weather improved. He had retired to sleep in his cabin close to the bridge.

  At sixteen knots, the Indianapolis now steamed in a direct line toward submarine I.58. Less than ten miles of sea separated them.

  Thirty feet below the surface, trimmed level, I.58 swung slowly to face the approaching ship. Hashimoto remained bent to the periscope, pressing so hard on the rubber eyepiece that his eyes watered. He blinked the tears away and resumed watching. As the target came closer, the black spot changed into a distinct triangular shape. Hashimoto felt a sense of excitement: this was no mere merchantman, but a large warship.

  “All tubes to the ready. Kaitens stand by!”

  The gap between the submarine and the Indianapolis was now five miles.

  His eyes still firmly pressed to the periscope, Hashimoto assessed the ship’s masthead height as ninety feet. She was too big to be a destroyer; he guessed she was either a battleship or a large cruiser—a prime target indeed.

  The hydrophone operators reported they could pick up engine noises. At three miles’ separation, Hashimoto fixed a set of earphones over his head. The target, clearly outlined in the moonlight, was on a near-collision course with his submarine.

  Hashimoto suspected a trap: was the approaching ship acting as a decoy, drawing his fire while destroyers waited to pounce? Nervously, he scanned the field of view. There was nothing else in sight.

  At two miles, he realized that his luck would hold. Turning to the men grouped around him, Hashimoto allowed himself a prediction. “We’ve got her!”

  Silence fell over the boat. The crew waited tensely for the order to fire.

  Suddenly, the kaiten pilots began clamoring to go. Hashimoto curtly told them they would be used only if the ordinary torpedo attack failed.

  The range was three thousand yards as Hashimoto began his final calculations.

  Aboard the Indianapolis, the 12:00 to 4:00 A.M. watch arrived on the bridge. There were now thirteen officers and men there, monitoring course and speed.

  Aboard the I.58, Hashimoto revised his original estimate that the Indianapolis was traveling at twenty knots. Based on what he could see through the periscope and hear through the hydrophones, he now estimated that her true speed was twelve knots. He decided to delay firing until the range had closed to un
der a mile.

  The torpedoes were set to travel through the water at a depth of twelve feet and a speed of forty-eight knots. Wakeless, they would be invisible to the most vigilant watchkeeper on the Indianapolis.

  With less than fifteen hundred yards separating the cruiser and the submarine, Hashimoto finally shouted the words. “Stand by. Fire!”

  At two-second intervals, the torpedo-release switch tripped. After twelve seconds, the torpedo officer reported. “All tubes fired and correct.”

  Six torpedoes, launched to give them a spread of three degrees, were speeding fanwise toward the Indianapolis.

  It was two minutes past midnight.

  Aboard the Indianapolis, one of the officers on the bridge commented that the visibility was improving as the moon rose higher in front of the ship.

  Below the bridge, several hundred men slept on mattresses and blankets on the open deck to escape the broiling heat below.

  A party, far forward in a starboard cabin, was coming to an end. And in his emergency cabin behind the bridge, Captain McVay was in his berth, asleep, stark naked.

  Hashimoto counted the seconds as the submarine turned parallel with the cruiser.

  “Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three—”

  A huge column of water rose into the air, blocking out the forward turret of the Indianapolis. Another column spouted near the aft turret. Then, bright-red flames leaped from various parts of the ship’s superstructure. As each of the torpedoes struck home, Hashimoto gave an exultant cry. “A hit! A hit!”

  The crew of I.58 danced with joy, shouting and stamping their feet until the submarine resembled some underwater madhouse.

  There was no panic aboard the Indianapolis, only stunned disbelief that the ship had been hit. Swiftly the crew moved to deal with the emergency. The cruiser was straining and groaning and settling at the bows.

  Captain McVay ordered the radio room to transmit a distress message. Moments later, with smoke and flames enveloping the foredeck, without lights or power—certain indication of mortal damage—McVay gave the order to abandon ship.