Columbus, OH – The Ohio man who piloted the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima in 1945 is dead. Paul Tibbets Junior died in Columbus today (thursday) at the age of 92. As commander of the Enola Gay, a B-29, Colonel Tibbets dropped a bomb that killed at least a hundred thousand Japanese, most of them civilians. In an interview with Ohio Public Radio's Bill Cohen, Tibbets' long time friend and manager, Gerry Newhouse, says Tibbets knew that using the bomb for the first time was a controversial decision -- especially in hindsight -- and Tibbets wanted to downplay that after his death.
Paul Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a Brigadier General in 1966 and moved to Columbus with his wife in the 1970's to become president of an executive jet-taxi company. He retired from that job in 1985