Theordore "Dutch" Vankirk was from Pennsylvania and joined the Army Air Corps where he washed out as a pilot and then trained as a navigator. Making that, he flew B-17 missions in Europe, often as lead plane.
Transferred to the Pacific after Germany's fall, on his 59th mission, his plane, the Enola Gay, carried the atom bomb. He related that it was an uneventful mission as the Japanese air force and navy had been destroyed. For a few seconds after Little Boy was dropped, they thought the bomb was a dud, then came the blinding flash and mushroom cloud.
Vankirk still believes it was the right thing to do.
In 2007, he sold his log of the flight at auction for $300,000 and thinks Ross Perot bought it, "Hey, I took the money and run. I had it laying around my home all these years in a steel box." It had moved with him 14 times as he climbed the corporate ladder at DuPont.
Starnes kept his log from the USS Missouri which today can be seen in a display case at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri.
Two of the Greatest. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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