'I gave them the countdown I did the seconds. 'We all got ready for the final bomb run,' Tibbets told author Bob Greene on National Public Radio's Morning Edition during an interview on Aug. The historic mission was the first use of nuclear weaponry in war. The blast killed between 70,000 and 100,000 people and injured countless others. 6, 1945, when Tibbets flew the B-29 bomber Enola Gay over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and released a 10,000-pound atomic bomb dubbed 'Little Boy.' His confidant Gerry Newhouse explained that Tibbets had concerns that his detractors would protest at his gravesite. Tibbets' wishes were not to have a funeral or a headstone. Tibbets, who maintained that he didn't have any regrets about the World War II mission, had been in decline for months. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday at his home in Columbus, Ohio after suffering a number of health problems. Read a timeline of the World War II bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Paul Tibbets, who flew the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died after suffering a number of health problems.
