Georgia - Theodore Van Kirk was a living witness of the calamity that befell the city of Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II. That day, August 6, 1945 at 08.15, at the behest of U.S. President Harry S Truman at that time, the nuclear bomb "Little Boy" was dropped from the high explosive bomber Enola Gay.
Sunny morning it turned into a passion. As far as the eye could see visible only embers and smoke. The building burnt and melted, bodies strewn with tragic circumstances, including 2,000 students and 200 teachers who are just starting the morning of learning activities.
At least 140,000 people have died, while the survivors haunted by diseases caused by radiation. After the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan surrendered.
At that time, Van Kirk was the navigator of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb in the world. He was 24 years old at the time.
Now, the last member of the unity of the U.S. bomber had died. He breathed his last at a nursing home in Georgia. At the age of 93 years.
When interviewed in 2005, Van Kirk said, based on his experiences during World War II, a war let alone the use of the atomic bomb did not solve the problem. He wants such weapons destroyed.
"However, if anyone has, I would like to have more than what the enemy," he said, as quoted by the Guardian Liputan6.com, Wednesday (30/07/2014).
Van Kirk still join the military until a year before the war ended. Then, he returned to school, studying chemical engineering, then worked at DuPont until his retirement in 1985.
He subsequently moved from California to Atlanta, to be closer to her daughter. Just as World War II veterans others, Van Kirk did not talk much about his service during the war.
"I do not even know at all until I was 10 years old - after I read some Kipling in the attic of my grandmother's old news," said his son Tom Van Kirk.
Van Kirk senior military career diunggap in a book published in 2012. Book was titled, 'My True Course' written Suzanne Dietz.
In the book, the elderly man is described as being energetic, very intelligent and has a great sense of humor. "As a chat with grandpa at the kitchen table, listening to the story of his life," said Suzanne Dietz.
Van Kirk will be buried August 5 in his hometown in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. He will be interred next to his wife, who died in 1975 ago.
Sunny morning it turned into a passion. As far as the eye could see visible only embers and smoke. The building burnt and melted, bodies strewn with tragic circumstances, including 2,000 students and 200 teachers who are just starting the morning of learning activities.
At least 140,000 people have died, while the survivors haunted by diseases caused by radiation. After the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan surrendered.
At that time, Van Kirk was the navigator of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb in the world. He was 24 years old at the time.
Now, the last member of the unity of the U.S. bomber had died. He breathed his last at a nursing home in Georgia. At the age of 93 years.
When interviewed in 2005, Van Kirk said, based on his experiences during World War II, a war let alone the use of the atomic bomb did not solve the problem. He wants such weapons destroyed.
"However, if anyone has, I would like to have more than what the enemy," he said, as quoted by the Guardian Liputan6.com, Wednesday (30/07/2014).
Van Kirk still join the military until a year before the war ended. Then, he returned to school, studying chemical engineering, then worked at DuPont until his retirement in 1985.
He subsequently moved from California to Atlanta, to be closer to her daughter. Just as World War II veterans others, Van Kirk did not talk much about his service during the war.
"I do not even know at all until I was 10 years old - after I read some Kipling in the attic of my grandmother's old news," said his son Tom Van Kirk.
Van Kirk senior military career diunggap in a book published in 2012. Book was titled, 'My True Course' written Suzanne Dietz.
In the book, the elderly man is described as being energetic, very intelligent and has a great sense of humor. "As a chat with grandpa at the kitchen table, listening to the story of his life," said Suzanne Dietz.
Van Kirk will be buried August 5 in his hometown in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. He will be interred next to his wife, who died in 1975 ago.
