“I didn’t even find out that he was on that mission until I was 10 years old and read some old news clippings in my grandmother’s attic,” Tom VanKirk told the AP in a phone interview Tuesday. Like many World War II veterans, VanKirk didn’t talk much about his service until much later in his life, when he spoke to school groups, his son said. “But if anyone has one, I want to have one more than my enemy.” DUTCH VAN KIRK, 1921-2014 Dutch Van Kirk was the navigator and last surviving crew member of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the last days of. “I personally think there shouldn’t be any atomic bombs in the world - I’d like to see them all abolished. Van Kirk was the navigator of the Enola Gay, a B-29. And atomic weapons don’t settle anything,” he said. Theodore Van Kirk died Monday of natural causes at the retirement home where he lived in Georgia, his son Tom Van Kirk said. “The whole World War II experience shows that wars don’t settle anything. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” VanKirk said. “I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. VanKirk told the AP he thought it was necessary because it shortened the war and eliminated the need for an Allied land invasion that could have cost more lives on both sides. Whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb has been debated endlessly. Six days after the Nagasaki bombing, Japan surrendered. The blast and its aftermath claimed 80,000 lives.
Three days after Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
