This Military Service Page was created/owned by
SSgt Robert Bruce McClelland, Jr.
to remember
Tibbets, Paul Warfield, Jr., Brig Gen.
If you knew or served with this Airman and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Quincy, Illinois
Last Address Columbus, Ohio
Date of Passing Nov 01, 2007
Wall/Plot Coordinates Cremated, ashes scattered over the English Channel
Tibbets' marriage, to the former Lucy Wingate ended in divorce in 1955;his second wife was a French woman named Andrea Quattrehomme.During 1959, he was promoted to Brigadier General. He retired from the U.S. Air Force on August 31, 1966.
During the 1960s, Tibbets was named military attaché in India, but this posting was rescinded after protests in India regarding Tibbets' role in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. After his retirement from the Air Force, he worked for Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus, Ohio-based air taxi company now called NetJets. He retired from the company during 1970 and returned to Miami, Florida. He later left Miami to return to Executive Jet Aviation, having sold his Miami home in 1974 He was president of Executive Jet Aviation from 1976 until his retirement in 1987.
Tibbets briefly commanded the 393rd Bomb Squadron during his tenure in the 509th Composite Group. His grandson Colonel Paul W. Tibbets IV, USAF, (a 1989 graduate of the US Air Force Academy) was also commander of the 393rd Bomb Squadron at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, from 2005 to 2007 and flew the B-2 Spirit. The 393rd is one of two operational squadrons under the same unit his grandfather commanded, the 509th Bomb Wing.
Death
Tibbets died in his Columbus, Ohio, home on November 1, 2007.He had suffered small strokes and heart failure during his final years and had been in hospice care. Tibbets specified in his will that there should be no funeral service after his death and no headstone because anti-nuclear demonstrators could make his resting place a pilgrimage site. Tibbets asked to be cremated and have his ashes dispersed into the waters of the English Channel.
Other Comments:
From USAFHRA:
In March 1943, he was returned to the United States for the purpose of participating in the B-29 program. This flight test work with the Boeing factory and Air Materiel Command continued until March 1944 at which time General Tibbets was transferred to Grand Island, Neb., as director of operations under General Frank Armstrong who started a B-29 instructor transition school. In September 1944, he was assigned to the Atomic Bomb Project as the Air Force officer in charge of developing an organization capable of employing the atomic bomb in combat operations, and mating the development of the bomb to the airplane. In this function, he was also charged with the flight test development of the atomic bomb itself. As these developments progressed, General Tibbets was further charged with the tactical training of bombardment organizations and their deployment into the combat theater of operations. He flew the first atomic bomb mission against enemy forces, dropping the bomb on Hiroshima.
