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I said that was fine, but asked if it would be OK if I hung around to watch them greet Iowans.
#Japanese methodist preacher meets pilot of enola gay tv
Which was a break, because they were being stalked by a TV crew from Japan, led by a respectful but insistent young woman who desperately wanted an interview. It put Van Kirk and Ferebee in a foul mood. "When the Japanese apologize for the rape of Nanking, for the Bataan Death March, when they apologize for Pearl Harbor, then maybe I'll think about saying we're sorry." "They want us to wring our hands and say we're sorry for what we did to the poor Japanese, that we're terrible people, monsters and killers," said Van Kirk. Van Kirk and Ferebee ended up deciding I was all right and we talked.
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They were proud of what they'd done in the war and had no regrets about Hiroshima. They said Tibbets, the pilot, their leader, the man who got most of the unwanted publicity, would be there the next day. There was no way Tibbets would talk with me, they said. We'll shortcut this by saying Tibbets, who had driven to Ankeny from his home in Columbus, Ohio, parked his car behind the "Enola Gay Crew" tent as promised. I introduced myself to him and - a shocker - he was delighted to talk. He, too, had no regrets about piloting the plane - named after his mother, Enola Gay Haggard of Glidden - because there is no question it led to the Japanese surrender. "I didn't have any crystal ball," he said. I also knew that if the darned thing worked the way it was supposed to, it would demonstrate to the Japanese the futility of continuing the war." "I knew there would be a hell of a big bang and I knew it would kill a lot of people, including some American prisoners of war. He was right, and the World War II veterans at the Ankeny air show specifically sought out Tibbets to say thanks. Their words were the same: "You saved my life." One after another, the men, most in their 70s or 80s, stopped strolling past the exhibits, stared, then almost shyly walked up to say hello. They explained they were among the soldiers and Marines preparing for the invasion of Japan that almost certainly would have cost an estimated 1 million Japanese and American lives. "It's always nice to hear that," Tibbets told me. Van Kirk, the last surviving member of the Enola Gay flight crew, lives in Georgia.
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Tibbets is said to have left instructions that there be no memorials and no stone marking his grave site.