Paul Tibbets

Paul Tibbets was a United States Army Air Forces pilot who commanded the 509th Composite Group during the final stage of the Second World War. An experienced bomber pilot, he had flown combat missions in Europe and North Africa before being selected for the atomic-bomb programme.

On 6 August 1945 Tibbets piloted the B-29 Enola Gay when it dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He remained in the U.S. Air Force after the war, eventually reaching the rank of brigadier general, and consistently defended the mission as a wartime military decision.

Jeff Shaara’s The Final Storm brings Paul Tibbets into the closing stage of the Pacific War as the officer chosen to command the Hiroshima mission. His preparations and flight are set beside the battle for Okinawa, Truman’s accession and the anticipated cost of invading the Japanese home islands. By following Tibbets within the operational chain that delivers the atomic bomb, the novel connects the secret weapons programme to the aircrew who carried out the attack and to the moral uncertainty surrounding the war’s end.