European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 14, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 the stars and stripes july 1985 the Day after they dropped the by Murlin Spencer for associated press As the White Cloud soared sky Ward to form a giant mushroom thousands of feet above the devastation that had been the City of an awed member of the bomber Crew exclaimed my god what have we done that first description of the killer Cloud and the Tor tured exclamation that followed Are the two things i remember most about the news conference held after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan 40 years on and i the feeling after the conference ended that with such an awesome weapon the world would never be the it was a typically hot Day on the Island of Guam when War idling around the press room at Chester Nimitz were startled by a radio president Harry aboard the Augusta returning from the Potsdam conference with leaders of Britain and the soviet announced sixteen hours ago an american air plane dropped one bomb on an important army that bomb had More Power than tons of it had More than times the blast Power of the British grand which is the largest bomb Ever yet used in the history of Truman waited until the third paragraph to say it is an atomic it is a harnessing of the Basic Power of the the Force from which the Sun draws its Power has been loosed against those who brought War to the far it was a stunning the Veteran correspondents on that faraway Island in the Pacific could not grasp its one what in the hell is an atomic bomb the weapons development was one of the bes kept secrets of world commander in chief of the Douglas com Mander of the Allied forces in the Southwest but a general with As High a rank As Robert commander of the eighth commented that he knew no More about it than did his newest apparently the russians knew or had obtained much information from their spies in new it was an excited group of about two dozen correspondents who climbed aboard a truck 7 for a Dusty ride to the Headquarters of the 21st bombing they knew this was the biggest Story they would Ever cover in this the quonset hot and was an unlikely place for such a momentous news maps and pictures of War filled the the chairs were of hard and at one end of the room was a Long this could have been a conference with a bomber Crew in any of the other Heaters of War in new the but other such conferences we rent led by High ranking generals like Carl commander of the strategic air and Curtis chief of they were there More As censors than our attention was focused on the Young men who sat at the they wore Ordinary Khaki their shirts open at the they were the ones who had the Story of the atomic they had dropped Paul a 29yearold Veteran of bomb ing missions in was the the Man who piloted the bombing a four engine b29 named Enola Gay for his Navy William Parsons had helped Arm the bomb while the plane was Enro Ute to Thomas the had aimed and dropped the these probably the most intensely trained of any fliers for a specific did not have the appearance of they were like thousands of liners who had carried out missions in Asia and the Pacific in world War Only the bomb they car ried made the in the past 40 everything that can be told has been told about this bomb being dropped on the Beautiful City of but this was the first Tibbets and Parsons described the explosion As tremendous and Tibbets told How the Enola Gay had taken off from Little Tinian near Saipan in the Early morning darkness of the flight to the target was no Why had Hiroshima been chosen there Are Many explanations but we were told that Hiroshima had not been heavily bombed so far so the Impact of this new bomb could be better questions flew from every More often than not Spaatz would interrupt dont answer what emerged was the first description of the bomb ing that was no a few japanese survivors would later give firsthand it was 0816 when we dropped the said Par the Navy ordnance then we made As much distance from the Ball of fire As we it was not known what effect this tremendous explosion would have on the plane that dropped the Parsons we were at least 10 Miles away but there was a visual this was followed by a physical Impact and colonel Tibbets close flak and it was just like that a close burst of antiaircraft a Mountain of smoke was going up in a mushroom with the Stem coming at the top was White but up to feet from the ground there was boiling soon afterwards Small fires sprang up on the Edge of but the town was entirely we stayed around two or three and by that time the smoke had risen to higher than we time after time we pressed for an answer to what to us was the most human question what was your thought when you dropped this awful bomb on a City filled with More women and children than soldiers the answer was always the same this Mission was like any Only the bomb was there could be no immediate estimate of death and the heavy pall of smoke that Lay Over the Devastey City precluded but we did not need to stretch our imagination to visualize what horrors were hidden by that in More than three years of covering the Pacific from Australia to the i had survived bombings by conventional i had seen the ground glowing Green from phosphorus bombs dropped by Japa sense in the Philippines heard the cry of terrified and wounded i had been aboard the Light Cruiser Nashville when it was turned into a pillar of fire by a Kamikaze but this new bomb was it was not until later that first estimates gave the toll of More than dead and at least two thirds of the cites build Ings to my fire was the most awful weapon used in the this bomb combined the horror of fire and the destruction of the questioning we sat quietly for a then returned to under Ordinary we would have dashed for our typewriters to get this first eyewitness Story to a waiting but this want a typical so tight was the Security that Navy censors who regularly checked our copy were not permitted to read these the copy was forwarded to Washington for final i sat at my my mind filled with details of possibly the most historic Story of All there was silence around me and then someone lets go the Story was written no one expressed his feelings but i Felt deeply after More than three years of covering the i had come to feel the end was Nimitz himself had said the japanese were beaten and needed Only an excuse to surrender while still saving possibly this bomb was the but there was the awful feeling that after All the years of the deaths of millions around the that with this one bomb one fact had become Clear Man at last had found a Way to destroy Murlin an associated press correspondent for 31 covered world War ii in the Pacific for almost four years he is now assistant news editor at the Register guard in Ore devastated a month after the bomb inset Enola Gay Bombardier Thomas Ferebee Pilot Paul navigator Theodore Van Robert a photo