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When I left my room, I greeted my dog, Reginald, with head-pat. The faint sound of the front door closing prompted me to leave my bed and get dressed for breakfast. If I had known that that was the last time, I would see her… I’d like to think I would have said something like, “I love you.” I had thought nothing of it and watched as Mum left without another word. Lane had instructions to give me my birthday presents should she not be there. She informed me that she was going out, as she always did-wondering around the grounds and setting up her easel and paints where ever she liked-and I inquired if she anticipated being late for dinner, to which she replied that Mrs. I turned my head to see a woman with greying hair looking down at me, a sort of half-smile on her face. I awoke slowly, stretching my legs underneath the warm blankets. Whatever the reason, alone was exactly how she left me on my fourteenth birthday, never to be seen again. She named me Enola in hopes that I would too kill millions. Mum had been inspired from the dropping of the atomic bomb, which killed millions.Mum had planned on being a distant parent, which if this was true, then I applaud her for consistency and dedication.Once, to be more logical, I made a list of reasons as to why Mum would name me such an odd name. Ironically, alone can accurately describe my childhood. My name is Enola Holmes, which spelled backwards is alone-for most of my life I believed that was the most interesting thing about me. Enola Gay was the name of the American plane that dropped the first atomic bomb in World War II. Instead of 12 men on the Enola Gay, people would think there were only nine.When you search for the name ‘Enola’ online, the first result is Enola Gay. Jeppson was worried that without some addition, the importance of his role, along with that of Navy Capt. Jeppson was concerned because he learned his name, along with two others, would be absent from a list of crew members long-ago stenciled on the side of the infamous B-29 bomber by the military. The new Udvar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was about to open with the Enola Gay on display. It was 2003 when Jeppson felt compelled to come forward. Today he lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Molly, retired after a career spent at the helm of a handful of high-tech companies and working as consultant for the Department of Energy.
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Jeppson turned to graduate studies at University of California, Berkeley, after leaving the military. Now 90, Tibbets lives in a modest brick home in a well-kept neighborhood in Columbus and travels occasionally for air shows and veterans’ ceremonies. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,” the 84-year-old said from his suburban Atlanta retirement home near the base of Stone Mountain, where a large relief memorial carved out of the bare rock depicts Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. “I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. The 9,000-pound bomb fell down toward the city as the Enola Gay banked away, the crew hoping to escape with their lives.ĭespite decades of controversy over whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb - which left some 140,000 dead in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later - Van Kirk remains convinced it was necessary because it shortened the war and relieved the Allies of having to mount a land invasion that might have cost far more lives on both sides. Under cover of night, he guided the bomber nearly exactly as planned - the plane was just 15 seconds behind schedule. It was a perfect mission, Van Kirk recalls. Van Kirk, then 24, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped “Little Boy” - the world’s first atomic bomb - over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug.