He was a student at the University of Cincinnati’s medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and spent most of his boyhood in Miami. This is a real human being who changed the course of the world inexorably on that August morning.” You use anything at your disposal.”įilmmaker Ken Burns said Tibbets’ life “helps to take this incredible, gigantic event and personalize it. “You’ve got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. “I’m not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I’m proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did,” he said in a 1975 interview.
