You had to be pretty stupid if you didn’t know,” he told the Independent Journal in 2000.īoarding the stripped-down B-29 on the island of Tinian in the northern Marianas, Van Kirk and his crewmates flew some 1,700 miles to Japan. The base was crawling with the leading atomic physicists of the time.
“It didn’t take long to figure out (our mission). While the payload was never specified, he said the trainings at Wendover Air Force Base in Utah were super secret - leading him to quickly ascertain what was in the works.
In 1944, he was told that he had been chosen for a top-secret bombing mission that could help end World War II. A veteran of 58 World War II combat missions over Europe and Africa, Van Kirk had plenty of stories to share.
