Letter from George R. Caron

Mar. 23, 1993

Dear Danny,

I got overseas late in the war and had only 5 missions over Japan. We only received flak on the first mission and I never had to fire my guns in anger. 

The 4th mission was the historic one to Hiroshima which I feel convinced the Japanese that they really had lost the war. Even though many Japanese lives were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many, many more lives on both sides were saved by not having to invade Japan.

My association with B-29’s started in Feb ’43 when I went to Tech school to study the electronic remote control gun turret system. I went to the Boeing factory in Wichita to help work on the turrets and test fly the airplanes as they came off the assembly line.

I joined Col. Tibbet in Sept. ’43 when he formed a flight test crew for the XB-29 & YB-29’s. Those early airplanes were full of gremlins and we worked hard to keep them flying.

I was rated as a turret mechanic but as there were no B-29 gunners, I became a gunner also, test firing all the turret locations.

After about 1½ yrs of this, we finished the tests and I was sent to Kansas as a flight and ground instructor. That’s when Tibbets wrote me and asked if I wanted to join a new outfit he was forming to go overseas. I wired him right back to count me in.

That was the beginning of the 509th Composite Group. Our B-29’s were stripped of upper and lower turrets leaving only the tail turret. That’s how I became a tail gunner & the Brooklyn Dodger baseball cap became famous.

As a final note, we all must pray that a nuclear device is never again used in anger. I hope this letter will help in your report.

Sincerely,

George R. Caron
TAIL GUNNER - ENOLA GAY