The New York Times described the ensuing moments in its obituary of Van Kirk: Van Kirk navigated the Enola Gay from Tinian in the Mariana Islands to Hiroshima, on the Japanese island of Honshu, a six-and-a-half hour flight, within a few seconds of its original estimated time of arrival. 15 the Japanese surrendered, ending the Second World War. Three days later, the US would drop a second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. On Aug. Paul Tibbets, in which their B-29 Superfortress bomber dropped an atomic bomb code-named “ Little Boy” on Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people. Kirk, called “Dutch,” was 24 years old at the time of the famous flight, piloted by Col. 6, 1945, died Monday of natural causes at the Park Springs Retirement Community in Stone Mountain, Ga.
Theodore Van Kirk, who served as the navigator aboard the Enola Gay on Aug. The last surviving crew member of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan near the end of World War II, has died.Ĭapt.
