No I feel no sorrow or remorse for whatever small role I played. Given the same set of circumstances as existed in 1945, I would not hesitate to take part in another similar mission. One has to consider the context of the times in which decisions are made.
![served on the crew of the enola gay served on the crew of the enola gay](https://i0.wp.com/www.raptisrarebooks.com/images/73692/signed-photograph-of-the-enola-gay-crew.jpg)
(1) Would you do it again? (2) Do you feel any guilt for having been a part of Hiroshima's destruction? When asked about his atomic bomb missions on numerous interviews, Beser made the following response:įor years I have been asked two questions.
![served on the crew of the enola gay served on the crew of the enola gay](https://images.pond5.com/silent-outtakes-crew-enola-gay-footage-106299105_iconl.jpeg)
He came home to Baltimore and in the mid-1950s began a long career working on defense projects for Westinghouse. In 1946, Beser was one of the founding members of Sandia National Laboratories, in New Mexico. Beser was the only crew member to accompany both atomic bomb missions and besides the commanding officers/pilots, had a scientific understanding of the new weapons' potential and destructiveness, as a result of his earlier high school and university education. Three days later in a second B-29 Superfortress bomber, Bockscar, Beser repeated this task over Nagasaki with Fat Man, the plutonium implosion bomb that became the second and last atomic bomb used in combat. Beser did not watch the bomb detonate but he heard the bomb's radar signals switch on and then cut off at the moment the intense light generated by its detonation filled the plane. The bomb fell away from the aircraft at 09:15:17 Tinian time. Beser's job was to monitor those sensors and ensure that there was no interference that could have detonated it prematurely. "Little Boy's" detonation was triggered by radar sensors on the bomb that measured its altitude as it fell.
![served on the crew of the enola gay served on the crew of the enola gay](https://gdb.voanews.com/7902B570-F624-4E10-8B8C-C2D49900241F_w408_r1_s.jpg)
By the time the Enola Gay rendezvoused with its two accompanying B-29 Superfortresses at 0607 over Iwo Jima, the group was three hours from the target area. The thirteen-hour mission to Hiroshima under the command of famous pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets, began at 0245 Tinian time. On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb to be used in combat was dropped by a B-29 Superfortress bomber, the Enola Gay, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. It consisted of the 393rd Bomber Squadron, the 320th Troop Carrier Squadron, the 390th Air Service Group, the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron, the 1027th Air Materiel Squadron, the 1395th Military Police Company, and the First Ordnance Squadron (in charge of handling the atomic bombs). It was a self-contained unit, with personnel strength of about 1,770 soldiers, mechanics, specialists and aviators. The 509th deployed to Tinian in the Marianas in May 1945. The pumpkins were useful for training, having been designed to have the same aerodynamic qualities of the Fat Man atomic bomb. The crews trained with practice bombs called "pumpkins" because of their size and shape. The unit that dropped the atomic bombs, 509th Composite Group, was activated at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, December 17, 1944. Brode, Norman Ramsey, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Edward Doll, and General Leslie Groves.
![served on the crew of the enola gay served on the crew of the enola gay](https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/public/styles/tiff_conversion/public/photographs/2020/2020-01.tif.jpg)
There, he met or worked with various luminaries in the Manhattan Project, such as Robert B. Because of his training and educational background Beser was sent to Los Alamos and worked on the Manhattan Project in the area of weapons firing and fusing. He was Jewish and extremely restless to get into the fight against Hitler. Beser then studied mechanical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University, also in Baltimore, but dropped out the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor to enlist in the Army Air Forces. Jacob Beser grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended the Baltimore City College (high school) graduating in June 1938.