Tom Della Torre, Sr.'s high school friend was the co-pilot on the Enola Gay.
Click here to read the letter which was sent on January 9, 2007 by his son,
Tom Della Tore, Jr., who said his dad spoke of Robert A. Lewis in conversation many times, never passing any moral judgment on him for being involved with dropping the Bomb, but always mentioning the personal anguish the man felt for having seen what had happened.
Click here to view the headlines of the day recording the dropping of the two Atomic Bombs, the first on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and then three days later, the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The fighting of the Japanese on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the tremendous death toll on both sides, lead to a great concern of the U.S. military leaders, on how the fighting would be on the main land of Japan. After the first Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and unconditional surrender was still not agreed to, the second Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Atom Bomb dropped on Nagasaki was not even the top headline. The War appeared to have no end.
In a LIFE MAGAZINE article on September 17, 1945 the Japanese Premier,
Prince Higashi-Kuni, in his message to the diet on Sept. 5, 1945, paid despairing tribute to the atomic bomb: ”This terrific weapon was likely to result in the obliteration of the Japanese people…” The atomic bomb, he indicated, was the immediate inducement to surrender. In all of my research, I have never met a World War II veteran who fought in combat in the Pacific, who thought the dropping of the bomb was not necessary.
Click here to see The September 17, 1945 LIFE MAGAZINE article, which was the ‘TV’ of the day in 1945, reveals the events of the surrender on board the USS Missouri on September 11, 1945 and the effects of the Atomic bomb which brought the war to an end.
Written by:
Bob Meli
January 2007 |