Robert A. Lewis
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Major Robert A. Lewis |
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|---|---|
| Born | October 18th, 1917 |
| Died | June 18, 1983 |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Service/branch | United States Army Air Forces |
| Battles/wars | Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima |
| Other work | Chemist, Manager, Pilot |
Robert A. Lewis (October 18, 1917 - June 18, 1983) was a United States Army Air Forces Officer serving in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. He was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber which dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
Lewis grew up in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, and attended Ridgefield Park High School there, graduating in 1937.
On August 6, 1945 Captain Lewis was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber which dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Normally the aircraft commander assigned to the Enola Gay, for this important mission he acted as co-pilot, assisting Enola Gay's new aircraft commander Colonel Paul Tibbets. This was actually August 5 in the US, due to the International Date Line.
Captain Lewis as Co-Pilot, and his crew, minus their original co-pilot Dick McNamara, was Tibbet's crew for the mission, and it included 2 specialists for the arming of Little Boy, the uranium 235 fission bomb.
The entire story was written and copyrighted by Major Lewis just before his death in 1983. His sons and daughter are in the process of publishing the manuscript before the 75th anniversary of the bombing in 2020.
On May 11, 1955, Kiyoshi Tanimoto,who had been living in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing and survived the explosion of 6 August 1945, had traveled to the US with the Hiroshima maidens to get reconstructive surgery for them, and while there was the subject of an episode of the American show This Is Your Life. After meeting various friends, family members and former colleagues and parishioners, Reverend Tanimoto's special guest at the end of the night was Captain Lewis, by then retired, representing the crew of the aircraft that had so dramatically changed his life.
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