Colonel Paul Tibbets

Alexandra Levy: I’m Alexandra Levy with the Atomic Heritage Foundation. I’m here on September 13, 2018 in Chantilly, Virginia with Norris Jernigan. My first question is for you to please say your name and to spell it. Norris Jernigan: Okay. I’m Norris Jernigan. That’s N-O-R-R-I-S. Jernigan is J-E-R-N-I-G-A-N. You would be surprised how some people pronounce it. […]

Robert S. Norris: Right. I’m Robert S. Norris, it’s N-o-r-r-i-s, is the last name. We’re here in Washington in Cindy’s office on February 28th, 2018, to talk about the French atomic program and weapons and so on. Cindy Kelly: Great. First, I hope that maybe we could start with the whole Curie family’s series of discoveries about […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly. I am in Riverside, California. It is Tuesday, February 21, 2017. I have with me Nancy Nelson. I’d like her to say her name and spell it. Nancy Nelson: My name is Nancy Nelson, N-A-N-C-Y N-E-L-S-O-N. Kelly: Tell me a little bit about yourself, so we can put this in context. Nelson: Okay. I […]

Alexandra Levy: We are here on December 27th, 2016, in Florida, with Russell Gackenbach. My first question for you is to please say your name and spell it. Russell Gackenbach: My name is Russell E. Gackenbach. G-A-C-K-E-N-B-A-C-H. Levy: Please tell us your place and date of birth. Gackenbach: I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, March 1923, on March 23. […]

Alexandra Levy: This is Alexandra Levy of the Atomic Heritage Foundation here in New Jersey on June 13, 2016, with Joseph Papalia. My first question is to please say your name and spell it. Joseph Papalia: Joseph Papalia, P-A-P-A-L-I-A. Levy: Can you tell us where and when you were born? Papalia: I was born August […]

Narrator: Apparently aloof from the rest of World War II, the solitary 509th, still unaware of its own purpose, carries on its puzzling training schedule. Their orders: practice runs to nearby islands. Then their own private missions to Japan, always above thirty thousand feet, always alone or in threes, always to drop just one bomb. Each […]

Raymond Gallagher: My name is Ray Gallagher. I am from Chicago, Illinois. The purpose in making this tape is because of an event that took a part of my life, and also of the lives of a group of men of which I was associated in 1945, during World War II. I was assigned to a […]

Announcer: You are listening to Extension 720. Here once again is your host, Milt Rosenberg. Milton Rosenberg: As we are tonight talking about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions, whose 43rd anniversary comes this weekend, we are talking with Robert Messer, Professor of History at the University of Illinois Chicago and with two participants in those […]

Ross Simpson: All right, here’s the promo for Part One of the Nuclear War Series. I’m Ross Simpson on a bus, heading into Cheyenne Mountain, outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is the home of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. This is also where my five part series on the nightmare of nuclear […]

Ross Simpson: I’m talking with Bob Caron, who was the Tail Gunner on the Enola Gay, the day it flew to Hiroshima, Japan and dropped the first atomic bomb. Bob, what do you remember about that day? It’s been forty years. Forty years is a long time. Bob Caron: Well, there’s a number of things […]