The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [195]
I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
27. TIBBETS
HEADQUARTERS, 509TH COMPOSITE GROUP, TINIAN
JULY 18, 1945
The B-29 was warming up, the shimmy from the four massive engines shaking him down to his toenails. He checked the gauges, knew that Lewis, beside him, was doing the same. On the panel in front of him the instruments sprang to life, needles pointing where they should, temperatures and pressures rising. Behind him, he knew that Blanchard was watching every move both men made, making mental notes, or even paper ones, jotting down anything Tibbets and his co-pilot were doing wrong. Tibbets tried to ignore the man’s presence, thought, asshole.
He pushed the throttle forward, the plane rolling toward the taxiway, the last stretch of pavement before the runway. The plane rumbled, shaking still, the roar of the engines growing louder, and Tibbets pressed the transmission button on the radio mike, said, “Dimples Eight Two to North Tinian Tower. Ready for takeoff on Runway Able.”
The response was immediate, the voice crackling in his ear.
“Roger, Dimples Eight Two. Cleared for takeoff, Runway Able.”
He didn’t hesitate, jammed the throttles forward, the plane responding after a slight hint of delay, lagging just behind the immediacy of the command from Tibbets’s hand. But the speed increased quickly, the plane bouncing, a slight swerve that Tibbets corrected. The B-29 continued to gain speed, the bounces more undulating now, no glance at Lewis. For now there was nothing for the co-pilot to do but watch, as he was, staring straight ahead toward the far end of the field, 8,500 feet away. He waited for it, felt it now, the nose rising slightly, the plane seeming to pause, gathering air beneath the massive wings, then smoothness, the wheels clear of the runway, the plane rising, pulling his stomach down, the sensation so familiar. He shifted his hands on the throttles, pulled one backward, heard the roar of the engines drop by a quarter, one engine shutting down, the prop feathering. He spoke into the intercom now.
“Engineer, confirm engine number one is shut down. Then feather engine number two.”
The engineer, Duzenbury, replied, “Yes, sir. Confirmed. Number one feathered. Shutting down number two.”
Tibbets smiled, would not look back at Blanchard, knew the man would be puzzled, possibly a full-blown panic. Just handle it, you jackass. I’ve got no time for chitchat, not right now. He struggled slightly with the plane’s controls, compensated for the sudden loss of half the plane’s power. To one side the props on the two idle engines had slowed considerably, propelled only by the wind speed of the plane, the B-29 held aloft now by only two of its engines. It had been Tibbets’s plan, and his flight engineer had been prepared for the order, the entire crew knowing that their special guest was being given a demonstration of what the B-29 was capable of, and more important, what her pilots could do about it.
He looked to the altimeter, the plane rising past a thousand feet, then eleven hundred, gaining altitude far more slowly with half power. Suddenly Tibbets banked the plane hard, the silent engines now downhill, one wing pointing toward the blue ocean, and he said into the intercom, “Nice view, Colonel? Tinian’s the hottest airfield in the Pacific. More B-29s fly out of here than anywhere in General LeMay’s command. It’s not the prettiest place, but we’re making do.”
He looked over to his co-pilot, saw Lewis glancing back toward Blanchard, a smile, no response from the guest behind him. Tibbets returned Lewis’s smile, his eyes moving to the gauges again, keeping the plane in a steep bank. There was little drop in altitude, but he knew that wouldn’t last, the bank too steep, the flight characteristics of the B-29 only allowing for so much lift before the plane simply fell out of the sky. The voice came now, high and tight, a slight stutter, Blanchard.
“Okay,