The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [196]
Tibbets turned to Lewis, winked, said, “Certainly, Colonel. I thought I might shut them all down, show you our glide characteristics, but that can be a risky maneuver, especially at low altitude.”
“No … not necessary. Please proceed with the mission.” Tibbets focused on the restart of the two silent engines, heard a final word from Blanchard. “Please?”
The two engines restarted, belching smoke for a brief second, their props fully engaged. Tibbets pushed the throttles forward, the plane surging, climbing again, straight and level. After a long silence, Tibbets spoke into the intercom.
“Navigator, give me a time to target.”
“Twenty-one minutes, sir.”
“Roger, twenty-one minutes. Colonel Blanchard, please note your watch.”
Blanchard didn’t respond, but Tibbets knew the colonel would do exactly that. He leaned back, pressed himself into the seat, flexed his shoulders. Immediately behind him the gap was too small for a regular seat, and he knew that Blanchard’s jump seat was far more uncomfortable. On Tibbets’s order the crew had made a minimal effort to soften the man’s ride by adding cushions to the meager padding. He felt Blanchard shifting around, a bump against Tibbets’s shoulder. The thought came again. Asshole.
The meeting with Blanchard’s boss, Curtis LeMay, had been on Guam, hours after Tibbets had learned that the test explosion at Alamogordo had been successful. Tibbets had expected to be there for the test, to see for himself just what this new weapon was supposed to do, but there had been an urgency about his return to Tinian, a sudden change of plans that infuriated Tibbets, and made Tibbets’s own commander more nervous than either of them needed right now. Tibbets’s superior was Major General Leslie Groves, the man who had headed up the Manhattan Project since its inception in 1942, and the one man who had more authority over the mission to drop the atomic bomb than anyone but the president. It was Groves who had transmitted the coded message to Tibbets, already back on Tinian, that the bomb’s test had been an extraordinary success. Tibbets had enormous respect for Groves, especially for the man’s hard-nosed resemblance to a bulldozer. The military chiefs respected Groves as well, appreciating that Groves was a problem solver, and a man who would pursue any project, no matter how complicated, to its conclusion. Though it had not been Groves’s decision to name the pilot who would carry the atomic bomb over Japan, Groves had welcomed Tibbets immediately, quick to understand what many in the air forces already knew. Paul Tibbets was most likely the best man for the job. To the relief of both men, they had quickly forged a working relationship that rested on a firm foundation of mutual respect. Tibbets had not always agreed with the way Groves wanted things done, but even those arguments were never severe. Tibbets especially respected that if Groves saw he was wrong, he would listen to that and make corrections. Groves certainly had an ego, but he had been trained primarily as an engineer, with an engineer’s mind. If the problem required a new solution, and that solution could be explained in ways an engineer’s mind would appreciate, changes would be made. It had never hurt their relationship that Groves’s office was in Washington, while Tibbets managed the intense training of the 509th in far-distant bases. The 509th had been established in the late fall of 1944, with its first base at Wendover, Utah. Security had been astoundingly tight, with a small army of highly screened guards, both in uniform and plain clothes, who kept a tight watch over the base and the men of the 509th, a tighter watch than most of them even knew about. But Tibbets knew that a host of unexpected security problems could plague any base located on American soil. With the enormous airstrips now fully operational on the island of Tinian, in the Mariana Islands chain, a few miles from Saipan, Tibbets had pushed hard for the 509th to relocate that much