The article recounts an interview with Theodore Dutch Van Kirk, the navigator of the Enola Gay, reflecting on the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The conversation takes place in 2004, painting a vivid picture of the mission and its aftermath. Van Kirk shares harrowing details of witnessing the devastation from the sky, as the team quickly turned to escape the shockwave of the explosion. The piece underscores the importance of remembering these events as the surviving crew members and hibakusha are fading away, emphasizing the urgency to preserve their stories before they are lost to history.
The instant the bomb left the bomb bay, we screamed into a steep diving turn to escape the shockwave. There were two— the first, like a very, very, very close burst of flak. Then we turned back to see Hiroshima. But you couldn’t see it. It was covered in smoke, dust, debris. And coming out of it was that mushroom cloud. The crew of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay.
We are passing into a twilight of history where the last living participants of the atomic bombings are disappearing. Van Kirk noted that he thought this interview would be one of his last.
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