Paul Tibbets \"Enola Gay Pilot\" Autographed 8x10 Photo Autograph Authentic

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Paul Tibbets \"Enola Gay Pilot\" Autographed 8x10 Photo Autograph Authentic:
$79.95

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This sale is for a veryrare Authentic,autographed 8X10 glossyphoto signed by the famous B-29\"Enola Gay\" pilot, Paul Tibbets. Buyer will receive a lifetime guarantee certificatefrom \"The Autograph House\".. IT IS GUARANTEED TO PASS PSA/DNA CERTIFICATION!!!

FREE SHIPPING.

Paul TibbetsPaul Tibbets Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets, Jr.Birth namePaul Warfield Tibbets, Jr.Born(1915-02-23)February 23, 1915
Quincy, Illinois, United StatesDiedNovember 1, 2007(2007-11-01) (aged92)
Columbus, Ohio, United StatesAllegianceUnited States of AmericaService/branch United States Army
United States Air ForceYearsof service1937–1966Rank Brigadier GeneralCommands held340th Bombardment Squadron
509th Composite Group
308th Bombardment Wing
6th Air DivisionBattles/wars

World War II:

• Operation Torch
• Combined Bomber Offensive
• Air raids on Japan
• Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

AwardsDistinguished Service Cross
Legion of Merit
Distinguished Flying Cross (2)
Purple Heart
Air Medal (4)OtherworkCharter Pilot and President of Executive Jet Aviation

Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. (February 23, 1915 – November 1, 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force, best known as the pilot of the Enola Gay – named for his mother – the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in the history of warfare. The bomb, code-named Little Boy, was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Tibbets enlisted in the United States Army in 1937 and qualified as a pilot in 1938. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he flew anti-submarine patrols over the Atlantic. In February 1942, he became the commanding officer of the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group, which was equipped with the Boeing B-17. In July 1942 the 97th became the first heavy bombardment group to be deployed as part of the Eighth Air Force, and Tibbets became deputy group commander. He flew the lead plane in the first American daylight heavy bomber mission against Occupied Europe on August 17, 1942, and the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe on October 9, 1942. Tibbets was chosen to fly Major General Mark W. Clark and Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Gibraltar. After flying 43 combat missions, he became the assistant for bomber operations on the staff of the Twelfth Air Force.

Tibbets returned to the United States in February 1943 to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. In September 1944, he was appointed the commander of the 509th Composite Group, which would conduct the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, he participated in the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946, and was involved in the development of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet in the early 1950s. He commanded the 308th Bombardment Wing and 6th Air Division in the late 1950s, and was military attaché in India from 1964 to 1966. After leaving the Air Force in 1966, he worked for Executive Jet Aviation, serving as its president from 1976 until his retirement in 1987.

Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., was born in Quincy, Illinois, the son of Paul Warfield Tibbets, Sr., and his wife, Enola Gay Tibbets. When he was five years old, the family moved to Davenport, Iowa, and then to Iowa\'s capital, Des Moines, where Paul Jr. was raised, and where his father became a confections wholesaler. When he was eight, his family moved to Miami, Florida, to escape from harsh midwestern winters. Young Paul was very interested in flying. One day his mother agreed to pay one dollar to get him into an airplane at the local carnival. In 1927, when he was 12 years old, he flew in a plane piloted by barnstormer Doug Davis, dropping candy bars with tiny parachutes to the crowd of people attending the races at the Hialeah Park Race Track.[1][2]

In the late 1920s, business issues forced Tibbets\'s family to return to Alton, Illinois, where he graduated from Western Military Academy in 1933. He then attended the University of Florida in Gainesville,[1] and became an initiated member of the Epsilon Zeta Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity in 1934.[3] During that time, Tibbets took private flying lessons at Miami\'s Opa-locka Airport with Rusty Heard, who later became a captain at Eastern Airlines.[3] After his undergraduate work, Tibbets had planned on becoming an abdominal surgeon. He transferred to the University of Cincinnati after his second year to complete his pre-med studies there, because the University of Florida had no medical school at the time. However, he only attended for a year and a half as he changed his mind about wanting to becoming a doctor. Instead, he decided to enlist in the United States Army and become a pilot in the United States Army Air Corps.[1]

Early military career[edit]

Because he went to a military school, attended some college, and had some flight experience, Tibbets qualified for the Aviation Cadet Training Program.[4] On February 25, 1937, he enlisted in the army at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and was sent to Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas, for primary and basic flight instruction. During his training, his performance showed he was an above-average pilot. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and received his pilot rating in 1938 at Kelly Field, Texas.[1]

After graduation, Tibbets was assigned to the 16th Observation Squadron, which was based at Lawson Field, Georgia, with a flight supporting the Infantry School at nearby Fort Benning.[1] It was here that he met Lucy Wingate, a clerk at a department store in Columbus, Georgia. The two quietly married in a Catholic seminary in Holy Trinity, Alabama, on June 19, 1938. Tibbets did not inform his family or his commanding officer, and the couple arranged for the notice to be kept out of the local paper.[5] They had three sons, Paul III, Gene and James.[6] While stationed at Fort Benning, Tibbets was promoted to first lieutenant,[7] and served as a personal pilot for Brigadier General George S. Patton, Jr., in 1940 and 1941.[1]

In June 1941, Tibbets transferred to the 9th Bombardment Squadron of the 3d Bombardment Group at Hunter Field, Savannah, Georgia, as the engineering officer, and flew the A-20 Havoc.[8] While there he was promoted to captain. In December 1941, he received orders to join the 29th Bombardment Group at MacDill Field, Florida, for training on the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. On December 7, 1941, Tibbets heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while listening to the radio during a routine flight.[7] Due to fears that German U-Boats might enter Tampa Bay and bombard MacDill Field, the 29th Bombardment Group moved to Savannah.[9] Tibbets remained on temporary duty with the 3d Bombardment Group, forming an anti-submarine patrol at Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina, with 21 B-18 Bolo medium bombers.[1] The B-18s were used as an intermediate trainer, which pilots flew after basic flight training in a Cessna UC-78 and before qualifying in the B-17.[10]

War against Germany[edit] Boeing B-17D in flight

In February 1942, Tibbets reported for duty with the 29th Bombardment Group as its engineering officer. Three weeks later he was named the commanding officer of the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group, equipped with the B-17D.[11] It was initially based at MacDill, and then Sarasota Army Airfield, Florida, before moving to Godfrey Army Airfield in Bangor, Maine.[12]

In July 1942 the 97th became the first heavy bombardment group of the Eighth Air Force to be deployed to England, where it was based at RAF Polebrook.[13] It had been hastily assembled to meet demands for an early deployment, and arrived without any training in the basics of high altitude daylight bombing. In the first weeks of August 1942, under the tutelage of Royal Air Force veterans, the group received intensive training for its first mission. The group commander, Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius W. Cousland,[14] was replaced by Colonel Frank A. Armstrong, Jr., who appointed Tibbets as his deputy.[15]

Tibbets flew the lead bomber Butcher Shop for the first American daylight heavy bomber mission on August 17, 1942, a shallow penetration raid against a marshalling yard in Rouen in Occupied France, with Armstrong as his co-pilot. This was not Tibbets\'s regular aircraft, Red Gremlin, nor his regular crew, which included bombardier Thomas Ferebee and navigator Theodore Van Kirk, who later flew with him in Enola Gay.[16] On October 9, Tibbets led the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe, attacking industrial targets in the French city of Lille. Poor bombing accuracy resulted in numerous civilian casualties and less damage to the rail installations than hoped, but the mission was hailed an overall success because it reached its target against heavy and constant fighter attack. Of the 108 aircraft in the raid, 33 were shot down or had to turn back due to mechanical problems.[17][18]

In the lead up to Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, the commander of the Eighth Air Force, Major General Carl Spaatz was ordered to provide his best two pilots for a secret mission. He chose Tibbets and Major Wayne Connors. Tibbets flew Major General Mark W. Clark from Polebook to Gibraltar while Connors flew Clark\'s chief of staff, Brigadier General Lyman Lemnitzer.[19] A few weeks later Tibbets flew the Supreme Allied Commander, Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, there.[20] \"By reputation\", historian Stephen Ambrose wrote, Tibbets was \"the best flier in the Army Air Force\".[21]

After Tibbets had flown 25 combat missions against targets in France,[11] the 97th Bomb Group was transferred to North Africa as part of Major General Jimmy Doolittle\'s Twelfth Air Force. For Tibbets, the war in North Africa introduced him to the realities of aerial warfare. He claimed that he saw the real effects of bombing civilians and the trauma of losing of his brothers in arms. In January 1943, Tibbets, who had now flown 43 combat missions,[22] was assigned as the assistant for bomber operations to Colonel Lauris Norstad, Assistant Chief of Staff of Operations (A-3) of the Twelfth Air Force.[11] Tibbets had recently been given a battlefield promotion to colonel, but did not receive it, as such promotions had to be confirmed by a panel of officers. He was told that Norstad had vetoed the promotion, saying \"there\'s only going to be one colonel in operations\".[23]

Tibbets did not get along well with Norstad, or with Doolittle\'s chief of staff, Brigadier General Hoyt Vandenberg. In one planning meeting, Norstad wanted an all-out raid on Bizerte to be flown at 6,000 feet (1,800m). Tibbets protested that flak would be most effective at that altitude. When challenged by Norstad, Tibbets said he would lead the mission himself at 6,000 feet if Norstad would fly as his co-pilot. Norstad backed down, and the mission was successfully flown at 20,000 feet (6,100m).[24]

War against Japan[edit] Tibbets waves from Enola Gay before the Hiroshima bombing mission.

When General Henry H. Arnold, the Chief of United States Army Air Forces, requested an experienced bombardment pilot to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, Doolittle recommended Tibbets.[25] Tibbets returned to the United States in February 1943. At the time, the B-29 program was beset by a host of technical problems, and the chief test pilot, Edmund T. Allen, had been killed in a crash of the prototype aircraft.[26]

Working with the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas, Tibbets test flew the B-29, and soon accumulated more flight time in it than any other pilot. He found that without defensive armament and armor plating, the aircraft was 7,000 pounds (3,200kg) lighter, and its performance was much improved. In simulated combat engagements against a P-47 fighter at the B-29\'s cruising altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100m), he discovered that the B-29 had a shorter turning radius than the P-47, and could avoid it by turning away.[27][28]

After a year of development testing of the B-29, Tibbets was assigned in March 1944 as director of operations of the 17th Bombardment Operational Training Wing (Very Heavy), a B-29 training unit based at Grand Island Army Air Field, Nebraska, and commanded by Armstrong. Its role was to transition pilots to the B-29.[11] Tibbets taught two Women Airforce Service Pilots, Dora Dougherty and Dorothea (Didi) Moorman, to fly the B-29 as demonstration pilots.[29]

On September 1, 1944, Tibbets reported to Colorado Springs Army Airfield, the headquarters of the Second Air Force, where he met with its commander, Major General Uzal Ent, and three representatives of the Manhattan Project, Lieutenant Colonel John Lansdale, Jr., Captain William S. Parsons and Norman F. Ramsey, Jr., who briefed him on the project.[30] Tibbets was told that he would be in charge of the 509th Composite Group, a fully self-contained organization of about 1,800 men, which would have 15 B-29s and a high priority for all kinds of military stores. Ent gave Tibbets a choice of three possible bases: Great Bend Army Airfield, Kansas; Mountain Home Army Airfield, Idaho; or Wendover Army Air Field, Utah.[31] Tibbets selected Wendover for its remoteness.[32]

When the operation was still in the development stage the leading candidates to command the group designated to drop the atomic bomb had been Armstrong and Colonel Roscoe C. Wilson, the Army Air Force project officer providing liaison support to the Manhattan Project. Although an experienced combat veteran against German targets, Armstrong was in his forties and had been severely injured in a fire in the summer of 1943, while Wilson had no combat experience and was qualified primarily by his engineering background and association with the project. Tibbets was considerably younger than both and had experience in both staff and command duties in heavy bomber combat operations, and was already an experienced B-29 pilot, thus making him an ideal candidate.[33]

The \"Tinian Joint Chiefs\": Rear Admiral William R. Purnell, Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, and Captain William S. Parsons

Tibbets, who received promotion to colonel in January 1945,[34] brought his wife and family along with him to Wendover. He felt that allowing married men in the group to bring their families would improve morale, although it put a strain on his own marriage. To explain all the civilian engineers on base who were working on the Manhattan Project, he had to lie to his wife, telling her that the engineers were \"sanitary workers\". At one point Tibbets found that Lucy had co-opted a scientist to unplug a drain.[35]

On March 6, 1945, concurrent with the activation of Project Alberta, the 1st Ordnance Squadron, Special (Aviation) was activated at Wendover, again using Army Air Forces personnel on hand or already at Los Alamos. Its purpose was to provide \"skilled machinists, welders and munitions workers\"[36] and special equipment to the group to enable it to assemble atomic weapons at its operating base, thereby allowing the weapons to be transported more safely in their component parts. A rigorous candidate selection process was used to recruit personnel, reportedly with an 80% \"washout\" rate. Not until May 1945 did the 509th Composite Group reach full strength.[37]

With the addition of the 1st Ordnance Squadron to its roster in March 1945, the 509th Composite Group had an authorized strength of 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men, almost all of whom deployed to Tinian, an island in the northern Marianas within striking distance of Japan, in May and June 1945. The 320th Troop Carrier Squadron kept its base of operations at Wendover. In addition to its authorized strength, the 509th had attached to it on Tinian all 51 civilian and military personnel of Project Alberta. Furthermore, two representatives from Washington, D.C. were present on the island:[38] the deputy director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell of the Military Policy Committee.[39]

The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group received movement orders and moved by rail on April 26, 1945, to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington. On May 6 the support elements sailed on the SS Cape Victory for the Marianas, while the group\'s materiel was shipped on the SS Emile Berliner.[40] An advance party of the air echelon flew by C-54 to North Field, Tinian, between May 15 and 22,[41] where it was joined by the ground echelon on May 29, 1945.[42] Project Alberta\'s \"Destination Team\" also sent most of its members to Tinian to supervise the assembly, loading, and dropping of the bombs under the administrative title of 1st Technical Services Detachment, Miscellaneous War Department Group.[43][44]

On August 5, 1945, Tibbets formally named his B-29 Enola Gay after his mother.[45] Enola Gay had been personally selected by him while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. Martin Company plant in Bellevue, Nebraska.[46] The regularly assigned aircraft commander, Robert A. Lewis, was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of August 6 to see the aircraft he considered his painted with the now-famous nose art. Lewis would fly the mission as Tibbets\'s co-pilot.[45][47]

At 02:45 the next day, the Enola Gay departed North Field for Hiroshima, Japan, with Tibbets at the controls. Tinian was approximately 2,000 miles (3,200km) away from Japan, so it took six hours to reach Hiroshima. The atomic bomb, code-named \"Little Boy\", was dropped over Hiroshima at 08:15 local time. Tibbets recalled that the city was covered with a tall mushroom cloud after the bomb was dropped.[48]

On Oct-06-10 at 21:25:13 PDT, seller added the following information:

ALL AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS COME WITH A LIFETIME GUARANTEE CERTIFICATE FROM \"THE AUTOGRAPH HOUSE\"

On Oct-06-10 at 21:33:10 PDT, seller added the following information:

ALL AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS COME WITH A LIFETIME GUARANTEE CERTIFICATE FROM \"THE AUTOGRAPH HOUSE\"

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Paul Tibbets \"Enola Gay Pilot\" Autographed 8x10 Photo Autograph Authentic:
$79.95