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Tom VanKirk said he and his siblings are very fortunate to have had such a wonderful father who remained active until the end of his life. The bomb killed 140,000 in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki three days later. VanKirk was the navigator of the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress aircraft that dropped 'Little Boy' - the world's first atomic bomb - over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug.
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Theodore VanKirk, also known as 'Dutch,' died Monday of natural causes at the retirement home where he lived in Stone Mountain, Georgia, his son Tom VanKirk said. The last surviving member of the crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima has died in Georgia. VanKirk grew to believe that nuclear arms should be abolished despite helping make the Enola Gay famous for dropping the first nuke Part of it was a reaction to Japan's deep-seated anger over being bombed twice in.Changed his mind: Pictured here at 84, the navigator and last living crewmember of the plane that dropped the world's first atomic bomb Theodore 'Dutch' VanKirk died Monday at 93. Part of this animosity fed into intense anti-Japanese sentiments on the part of many US World War II veterans still proud about Tokyo's ignominious capitulation in 1945. Dragging together a few parts of the fuselage, a propeller and other assorted pieces, like its vertical stabilizer, wheels or instruments, was tantamount to reducing the Enola Gay to an infamous hulk, worthy only of being shown as the fragments of a wreck. For many, the uniqueness of this one aircraft in human history demanded that a much greater level of reverent respect be shown for it.
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They intended to pressure the Smithsonian into altering its allegedly 'revisionist' representations of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most importantly, the Air Force Association (an organization for retired and active personnel of the US Air Force) and the American Legion (a national veteran's association) launched a lobbying campaign in the local DC media and the US Congress against the exhibition. Once the authors circulated their proposal among historians, military experts and World War II servicemen, however, intense protests began. As a result, the Smithsonian chose to deflect any public criticism by sharing the show's script among many possible stakeholders, inviting them to vet the exhibit. But the restoration could not be completed in time, and the entire plane was too large to fit inside the museum on the National Mall. To memorialize the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, the Smithsonian had ramped up a sophisticated program during 19 in anticipation of staging a comprehensive exhibition centered on the Smithsonian's ongoing renovation of the Enola Gay. Part of the Sturm und Drang of 1995 tied directly back to the Smithsonian's failure, or inability, to show the whole aircraft. The culture wars of the 1990s, however, turned this admirable academic aspiration into grist for innumerable polemics as both pro- and anti-Hiroshima activists manoeuvered back and forth through the media about the possible merits or demerits of dropping the 'Little Boy' U-238 atomic bomb over Hiroshima. And this is what we aim to offer our visitors. But a comprehensive and thoughtful discussion can help us learn from history.
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We have found no way to exhibit the Enola Gay and satisfy everyone. Martin Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, said at the time: This is our responsibility, as a national museum in a democracy predicated on an informed citizenry. Most importantly, its curators designed the exhibition so as to examine the motives, practices and after-effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The emblematic components of this B-29 bomber put on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC (1) were meant to anchor a particular type of historical exhibition. In 1995, a national, then global furore was whipped up by ideological, cultural and aesthetic conflict over displaying parts and pieces of the then not fully restored Enola Gay.