The dark silver Superfortress, part of the 509th Air Force of the 20th Air Squadron, landed. It carried no bombs or other means of destruction, but the eyes of 12 men. Yet it was responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians. Thirty minutes later, from the same runway, a plane bearing the number 82 took off with the letter R on its tail in a small circle. Under the cockpit, above a registered insignia, was written Enola Gay, the first name of the pilot's mother, Colonel Paul W. Tippit in the U.S. Air Force. His plane was carrying a massive bomb. When Tippit and his crew of 12 took to the air, he had four potential targets. General Thomas T. Handy, very specific: “...the dropping of the special bomb on a target depends on the quality of the weather conditions, and it must be dropped on one of the following: Kokoran Niigata, Hiroshima, Nagasaki... At 7:42 a.m. on August 6, 1945, while Tippett was flying at 26,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, he received a coded message from the reconnaissance plane 30 minutes ahead of him: One target was obscured by clouds, the second was barely visible. But there was a very clear target. The bomber turned to the last target after receiving a message: ‘Three-tenths of it is overcast. I advise you to shoot at it first.’ By a whim of nature, a city was chosen for its destiny. Hiroshima was the first to be bombed. I was eight years old when my father came home one sunny day in September and said to me: ‘Hitler has declared war.’” I know Hitler. I saw him at Rensgitter when he triumphantly entered Vienna—my native country—but I don't know war. I asked my father, “What is war, Father?” I have known war since that autumn day in 1939. At first, I was trembling in fear in the coal silo while planes bombed my city, my home, my family. Then, when my whole life became inexplicably bound up with war, I was sent from one war to another for thirty years. I had the opportunity to see foolish men like Hitler up close. There may be just wars, but I have never witnessed one that didn't end in terrible suffering.