Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War [Large Print] [Paperback]

This quote came from Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the Enola Gay (named after his mother) to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. He was referring to the crews that bombed Japan shortly after the start of the U.S. engagement in World War II, in a stirring symbolic strike at our Pacific enemy of those years. They had no way to come back with their planes, and had to fly onto the Asian mainland and hope to find their way back to the U.S. Many did not survive the mission.

What many do not know is that Tibbets also headed the unit that prepared to drop the atomic bombs. He ordered himself to pilot the first flight, out of his sense of responsibility for getting the job done right.

Many will think this book is a biography of Tibbets, who has remained out of the limelight since World War II. That thought is partially correct.

But the book is much more than that, even though that would have been a lot.

The author became interested in Tibbets because the author's father was so obviously in awe of Tibbets. He would mention seeing Tibbets in their common hometown of Columbus, Ohio, but never approached him.

Inspired by his father's interest, the author finally meets Tibbets shortly before his father dies.

Then begins one of those wonderful human experiences that we each should have, and books like this allow us to experience vicariously. Although Tibbets never met the father, he instantly understood him. In many informal talks and visits, the author came to understand both Tibbets and his own father who had left a tape recorded oral history.

There is a wonderful epiphany near the end of the book when the author finally understands why Tibbets meant so much to his father. I won't spoil it for you, but it's worth reading the whole book to get to this one story.

This book will be very appealing to anyone who read and liked The Greatest Generation. By focusing on the lives of just a few men (Tibbets, two of Tibbets' crew mates, and Greene's father) you get a richness and wholeness to the lives that makes it all come together much better than can happen with briefer stories. In a sense, the two books are companion pieces. In fact, I recommend that most people read Duty first, and then read The Greatest Generation. If you have already read The Greatest Generation, you should reread it after you have read Duty. You'll have many new insights as a result.

My next suggestion is that you then seek out someone who fought in World War II (a relative would be great if you have one) and talk to them about their experiences and what you thought you learned from these two books. You should be able to lift a generational curtain in the process, and make some wonderful human contact that would not have otherwise have been possible. In this way, you can pay real tribute to all those who made our modern world possible. To me, I beg to differ with Paul Tibbets' quote. I think that almost everyone was a hero at one level or another. The differences are not so important. What they did and why they did it are.

That one comment has been a common thread through all of the books I have read regarding the men and women involved in World War II. The General was chastising the author for suggesting that his father was less important as a Major in the war than General Tibbets. This was not the first lesson that would be taught, and I thought it was great the author included so many instances when the General took him to task. It was always instructive and formed a series of reference points for the author that taught him more than he ever expected to learn about his own father.

The Enola Gay, her crew, and the bomb she dropped remain for some/many an issue left unresolved. Fifty years allows for a great deal of second-guessing and revisionist history. If, after reading this book the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima is still questionable to you, read "Flags Of Our Fathers". If after you absorb the lives that Iwo Jima, a tiny island consumed I do not believe there is a credible argument that the dropping of the first Atom Bomb was anything other than correct. Not conditionally correct, but absolutely correct for the United States and Japan.

There is a conversation in the book between General Tibbets and Shoji Tabuchi. Mr. Tabuchi was carried by his mother on her back, while she pushed his brother in a carriage away from their home that was near Hiroshima after the bombing. Mr. Tabuchi's Father said this about the Bombing, "had the war continued all would have died, the end of the war spared the lives of men women and children all over Japan".

Why is it The Smithsonian Air And Space Museum had so much trouble a few years ago when presenting what had happened during World War II? I went back and checked some of the comments they proposed to display with the Enola Gay. I came to the conclusion that those involved were either pathetically ignorant, historical revisionists, or simply dullards. General Tibbets responded to the Author as follows when asked about those who make disparaging comments about him, his crew, or the mission, "Those people never had their balls on that cold, hard anvil," he said. "They can say anything they want." I think that makes the point clear enough even for a museum director.

You will meet 2 men who were part of the crew on The Enola Gay, Major Dutch Van Kirk who was the Navigator and, Colonel Tom Ferebee the Bombardier. You will read of the General's meeting with Mitsuo Fuchida the man who led the air attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a guest at the General's home.

"Talk about it? That would be like talking about the air we breathed." This was the General's response when asked why he and his generation did not talk about patriotism and their affection for their Country. He continued, "We grew up knowing that it was expected of us-to love this Country and to treat it with loyalty and respect."

The General did a great service for the author Mr. Bob Greene. The Author in turn shares his experience, which we all can benefit from. We in this instance means those of us who were not there, we who have never fired a shot in anger, been shot at, or placed our lives at risk, or into the hands of another. We, the group that benefited from those that have been called, "The Greatest Generation", by Tom Brokaw.

My thanks go to all the men and women who have ever served this Country and our allies, there are 2 men in particular I wish to thank, my Father who at 17 joined the Navy in 1943 and served as a Petty Officer First Class, and my Father in law, Wilfred Ecklin who left the Air Force after a career as a pilot and with the rank of Major, he is now deceased.

So what are you and your Family doing this Memorial Day?

In this memoir of three lives connected by history, proximity & family ties are the many stories, often intimate & achingly personal as well as deeply historic of one warrior's memories of a mission that changed the world & a son's final attempt to grasp his father's sense of honor & duty. A haunting tribute to ordinary heroes in an extraordinary time in American life.

Bob Greene has woven together an absorbing book of discovery of things momentous & minute: his father's army trunk containing the debris of those young & distant years; the 50 years his parents had attended the Saturday football games at Ohio Stadium & traveling with Paul Tibbets to Branson, Missouri for the last Hurrah of the Enola Gay crew who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima & another son's gratitude.