Claude Eatherly
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Claude Robert Eatherly (born 1918 in Texas-died 1978) was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, and the pilot of a weather reconnaissance aircraft Straight Flush that supported the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945.
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[edit] The bombing of Hiroshima
The Straight Flush was one of seven B-29s of the 393rd Bomb Squadron of the 509th Composite Group that took part in the Hiroshima mission, which culminated ten months of training during World War II. It departed Tinian Island at approximately 0137 on the morning of August 6, 1945, a little more than an hour ahead of the Enola Gay (which contained the bomb) and flew over Hiroshima with the task of reporting the weather conditions. He did not participate in the following Nagasaki mission.
[edit] The aftermath
Jerome Klinkowitz, in Pacific Skies: American Flyers in World War II, writes:
Shortly after leaving the Air Force in 1947, Eatherly took part in arrangements for a raid on Cuba by American adventurers hoping to overthrow the government; here the former weather pilot's responsibilities would involve a flight of bomb-laden P-38 Lightnings obtained as war surplus. The plot was uncovered, and Eatherly was arrested and prosecuted, serving time in jail for this offense.
Years later, Eatherly claimed to have become horrified by his participation in the Hiroshima bombing, and hopeless at the possibility of repenting for or earning forgiveness for willfully extinguishing so many lives and causing so much pain. He tried speaking out with pacifist groups, sending parts of his paycheck to Hiroshima, writing letters of apology, and once or twice may have attempted suicide. At one point “he set out to try to discredit the popular myth of the war hero [by] committing petty crimes from which he derived no benefit: he forged a check for a small amount and contributed the money to a fund for the children of Hiroshima. He held up banks and broke into post offices without ever taking anything.”[1] He was convicted of forgery in New Orleans, Louisiana and served one year between 1954 and 1955 for the crime. He was also convicted of breaking and entering in West Texas. Some think he committed such acts because of schizophrenia or anxiety disorder, for which he was held for many months at the Veterans' Administration Hospital in Waco, Texas.
It was in this hospital that he began to correspond with Günther Anders, a Viennese philosopher and pacifist, who became his friend in a battle to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. Eatherly wrote:
Whilst in no sense, I hope, either a religious or a political fanatic, I have for some time felt convinced that the crisis in which we are all involved is one calling for a thorough reexamination of our whole scheme of values and of loyalties. In the past it has sometimes been possible for men to “coast along” without posing to themselves too many searching questions about the way they are accustomed to think and to act — but it is reasonably clear that our age is not one of these. On the contrary, I believe that we are rapidly approaching a situation in which we shall be compelled to reexamine our willingness to surrender responsibility for our thoughts and our actions to some social institution such as the political party, trade union, church or State. None of these institutions are adequately equipped to offer infallible advice on moral issues and their claim to offer such advice needs therefore to be challenged.[1]
William Bradford Huie, in The Hiroshima Pilot, cast doubt on the Eatherly story. He believes that pacifist and anti-nuclear activists created or exaggerated elements of Eatherly’s story for propaganda purposes, and that Eatherly cooperated in this mythmaking from desire for fame or attention. Some of this skepticism was refuted in Dark Star by Ronnie Dugger. No other persons involved with the bombing of Hiroshima expressed guilt in the way that Eatherly did; Hiroshima pilot Paul Tibbets said that he couldn’t understand why Eatherly felt so guilty, as he wasn’t even there for the bombing.[citation needed]
[edit] Awards and decorations
[edit] Correcting common misconceptions
- He did not receive the Distinguished Flying Cross
- He was not the Commander of the bomber group
- He had no part in the Nagasaki Bombing
[edit] Further reading
- Günther Anders and Claude Eatherly, Burning Conscience: The case of the Hiroshima Pilot, Claude Eatherly, told in his letters to Günther Anders (1961)
- William Bradford Huie, The Hiroshima Pilot: The Case of Major Claude Eatherly (1964)
- Ronnie Dugger, Dark Star: Hiroshima Reconsidered in the Life of Claude Eatherly of Lincoln Park, Texas (1967)
- Jerome Klinkowitz, Pacific Skies: American Flyers in World War II (2004). ISBN 1-57806-652-2
- Maurizio Chierici, The Man from Hiroshima essay from an interview with Eatherly
- Marie Luise Kaschnitz, 'Hiroshima' (German poem about the Hiroshima pilot)
