

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. He was 93.



The mission went perfectly, VanKirk told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview. He guided the bomber through the night sky, just 15 seconds behind schedule, he said. As the 9,000-pound bomb nicknamed 'Little Boy' fell toward the sleeping city, he and his crewmates hoped to escape with their lives.

They didn't know whether the bomb would actually work and, if it did, whether its shockwaves would rip their plane to shreds. They counted - one thousand one, one thousand two - reaching the 43 seconds they'd been told it would take for detonation and heard nothing.

'I think everybody in the plane concluded it was a dud. It seemed a lot longer than 43 seconds,' VanKirk recalled.


The blast and its aftereffects killed 140,000 in Hiroshima.



'I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese,' VanKirk said.

But it also made him wary of war.

'The whole World War II experience shows that wars don't settle anything. And atomic weapons don't settle anything,' he said. 'I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world - I'd like to see them all abolished.

'But if anyone has one,' he added, 'I want to have one more than my enemy.'



'I didn't even find out that he was on that mission until I was 10 years old and read some old news clippings in my grandmother's attic,' Tom VanKirk told the AP in a phone interview Tuesday.

Instead, he and his three siblings treasured a wonderful father, who was a great mentor and remained active and 'sharp as a tack' until the end of his life.

'I know he was recognized as a war hero, but we just knew him as a great father,' Tom VanKirk said.

VanKirk's military career was chronicled in a 2012 book, 'My True Course,' by Suzanne Dietz. VanKirk was energetic, very bright and had a terrific sense of humor, Dietz recalled Tuesday.

Interviewing VanKirk for the book, she said, 'was like sitting with your father at the kitchen table listening to him tell stories.'


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