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Word had gotten out at the motel that the man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima was staying there for the weekend.ĭuring an interview, prior to his speech to the Rotary Club, the general recalled the first time he realized he had been assigned to a super-secret project that would end the war. People were staring and pointing at the two gray-haired men. They were oblivious to the world around them. Tibbets and Splitt were having a great time shooting the bull. In the background is Orville Splitt of Englewood, Fla. Paul Tibbets, in the foreground, talks to the media during his visit to Punta Gorda, Fla. As they sat on the porch of the motel’s restaurant having breakfast overlooking Charlotte Harbor with pelicans fishing in the distance and mullet jumping nearby, World War II seemed far away and long ago. The two old warriors met at the Best Western Motel in Punta Gorda. Tibbets came to nearby Punta Gorda in April 2002 to speak to the Punta Gorda Rotary Club and serve as honorary chairman of the 22 nd Annual Florida International Air Show held at the Charlotte County Airport. The “Red Gremlin” was the plane he piloted as commander of the first B-17 squadron to bomb Nazi-occupied France during the summer of 1942 as part of the 97 th Bombardment Group. Paul Tibbets flew a B-17 Flying Fortress over Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. He flew from Tinian Island in the Pacific to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan that help end World War II a few days later.īefore he dropped the world’s first Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima in a B-29 Super Fortress named for his mother, “Enola Gay,” Lt. Paul Tibbets waves to the ground crew on Augas he pilots the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” on its last bomb run.