Look At This Wonderful And Terrible Thing

This is the Enola Gay on Tinian.  I found this picture while I was reading about Andrew Jackson Higgins, the landing craft manufacturer.  Usually photos of war machinery leave me cold, they are dull and often bad.  This is an excellent photograph of the height of transportation technology.  I can hardly believe this thing can fly.

The B-29 project cost 3 billion dollars, half again as much as the atomic bomb.  This engineering marvel was used to cremate an agrarian society that managed to fight the U. S. for 3 and 1/2 years, and fight very hard.  We used a few in Korea as tactical bombers, a measure of desperation.  Other than that we never used these things again.  There are two still flying, both civilian projects.

The war against Japan was as good as won without the bomb.  Our destruction of Japan's military and commercial ships guaranteed victory.  God knows how many people died in the fire bombings.  I understand why the bomb was used, but we have the stigma of being the only country ever to use atomic weapons on enemy cities.  Not armies, but cities.

The above picture is as close to a photo of the angel of death I have ever seen.

This is a bell that can't be unrung.

Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.