War Hero Morris Jeppson Dies: Enola Gay Crewman Who Armed Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japs

[asaratis]

Our hearts and prayers should go out to Jeppson and his family. He was a true war hero who at age 23 armed the Atomic Bomb inside the Enola Gay when they approached the target city of Hiroshima which the result was tens of thousands of dead Japs possibly saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of servicemen including my father (R.I.P. Dad) who was prepared to invade Japan if it came to it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040604104.html

Morris R. Jeppson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lt. Jeppson, pictured before his first and only combat mission. (National Museum Of Nuclear Science And History)

Morris R. Jeppson, 87, one of two weaponeers who armed the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, prompting the surrender of Japanese troops and the end of World War II, died March 30 at a hospital in Las Vegas. His family could not provide a specific cause of death but said he had been hospitalized for back pain and a severe headache.
Known as "Dick," Mr. Jeppson was a 23-year-old Army Air Forces second lieutenant when he boarded the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, for what would be his first and only combat mission.
It was the wee hours of the morning on Aug. 6, 1945, and "Little Boy," the bomb that would introduce the world to nuclear warfare, lay in the plane's belly in safe mode. It had to be armed in flight en route to its target to avoid accidental detonation during takeoff.


More in links.

Your use of Japs" in the OP is noted, racist.

So playing your part in the massacring of the Japanese people makes you a war hero? Sounds more like a war criminal to me.

Those two bombs saved more lives than they took...stopped the war without a costly (in lives) invasion.

So playing your part in the massacring of the Japanese people makes you a war hero? Sounds more like a war criminal to me.

Hey, the Japs drew first blood when they attacked Pearl Harbor. We just ended it with the bomb vaporizing tens of thousands of the treacherous Japs.

Your racism is showing.

 

[Dr Gregg]

are you kidding? After what they did to the world? Let them still have a military? Plus, the unconditional surrender helped change Japan drastically and we helped build them up to be economically and technologically strong

After what we did should we still be allowed to have a military? Yes, well I'm sure glad the U.S. government bombed Japan so they could then steal from the American taxpayer to rebuild Japan. Excellent.

Do you believe we should have a Military?

NO, I'm thinking his plan would to of been to get them to stop by asking them really nicely.

This person has to be saying this shit to purposely piss people off, can't be that stupid as to actually believe this shit, can he?

 

[elvis]

Apparently few others here do.

50 million people died during WWII, mostly civilians. It was horrible. Who was responsible for it all? Germans and Japanese.

That would be incorrect. The Japanese did not give the order to drop the nukes on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

so you think 9/11 was caused by the US government's foreign policy (blowback), but you don't think the Japanese government brought Hiroshima on itself?

 

[elvis]

After what we did should we still be allowed to have a military? Yes, well I'm sure glad the U.S. government bombed Japan so they could then steal from the American taxpayer to rebuild Japan. Excellent.

Do you believe we should have a Military?

NO, I'm thinking his plan would to of been to get them to stop by asking them really nicely.

This person has to be saying this shit to purposely piss people off, can't be that stupid as to actually believe this shit, can he?

He believes it.

 

[Dr Gregg]

Apparently few others here do.

50 million people died during WWII, mostly civilians. It was horrible. Who was responsible for it all? Germans and Japanese.

That would be incorrect. The Japanese did not give the order to drop the nukes on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

NO, they did things worse, burn cities to the ground with incendiary bombs, enslaved people and performed genocide. YOu know how horrible it is to be burned to death during those bombings? I'd take incineration any day over what they did to people.

 

[Dr Gregg]

Do you believe we should have a Military?

NO, I'm thinking his plan would to of been to get them to stop by asking them really nicely.

This person has to be saying this shit to purposely piss people off, can't be that stupid as to actually believe this shit, can he?

He believes it.

He's a complete dickhead, probably one of the most bipartisan, unifying opinions the USMB has ever seen.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

50 million people died during WWII, mostly civilians. It was horrible. Who was responsible for it all? Germans and Japanese.

That would be incorrect. The Japanese did not give the order to drop the nukes on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

so you think 9/11 was caused by the US government's foreign policy (blowback), but you don't think the Japanese government brought Hiroshima on itself?

I don't think the Japanese civilians brought Hiroshima on themselves. The government's policies certainly created the environment for Hiroshima. But I personally wish our government didn't choose to play the role of al-Qaeda in this analogy.

 

[Dr Gregg]

And you talk about being humble with war? We built up Japan and Germany after WWII, if we were not humble and doing the noble thing, why would we help build their countries back up, even after what they put our people and the world through?

WWII and the ending of the emperor's rule was probably the best thing that ever happen to Japan. They blew up economically after that, and is now an ally.

I don't think you can get as humble and noble as that

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

And you talk about being humble with war? We built up Japan and Germany after WWII, if we were not humble and doing the noble thing, why would we help build their countries back up, even after what they put our people and the world through?

WWII and the ending of the emperor's rule was probably the best thing that ever happen to Japan. They blew up economically after that, and is now an ally.

I don't think you can get as humble and noble as that

I don't qualify stealing from taxpayers to clean up the mess the government created being "humble."

 

[Dr Gregg]

And you talk about being humble with war? We built up Japan and Germany after WWII, if we were not humble and doing the noble thing, why would we help build their countries back up, even after what they put our people and the world through?

WWII and the ending of the emperor's rule was probably the best thing that ever happen to Japan. They blew up economically after that, and is now an ally.

I don't think you can get as humble and noble as that

I don't qualify stealing from taxpayers to clean up the mess the government created being "humble."

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

And you talk about being humble with war? We built up Japan and Germany after WWII, if we were not humble and doing the noble thing, why would we help build their countries back up, even after what they put our people and the world through?

WWII and the ending of the emperor's rule was probably the best thing that ever happen to Japan. They blew up economically after that, and is now an ally.

I don't think you can get as humble and noble as that

I don't qualify stealing from taxpayers to clean up the mess the government created being "humble."

So you think it is humble to steal from the taxpayers to clean up the mess the government created?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

No, I wish we didn't feel the need to have an unconditional surrender from Japan. Why weren't we willing to be humble in our victory?

the way they were humble at Pearl? the way they were humble to american POW's? the way they were humble to the population of Nanking? fuck them.

Kevin's point is that it is wrong to vaporize civilians for actions of soldiers. How do you feel about that? Do you think that killing tens of thousands of civilians is justified by the fact that their army was waging war against our country?

Once again both targets were military, Both had war factories, I think both were ports and I know one of them was the Headquarters for an entire Army forming to defend the Island. More Japanese died in the fire bombs then either nuke attack.

If we had invaded we might have wiped out the Japanese race. We were looking at as many as a million casualties with 100k at least dead on our side.

 

[elvis]

the way they were humble at Pearl? the way they were humble to american POW's? the way they were humble to the population of Nanking? fuck them.

Kevin's point is that it is wrong to vaporize civilians for actions of soldiers. How do you feel about that? Do you think that killing tens of thousands of civilians is justified by the fact that their army was waging war against our country?

Once again both targets were military, Both had war factories, I think both were ports and I know one of them was the Headquarters for an entire Army forming to defend the Island. More Japanese died in the fire bombs then either nuke attack.

If we had invaded we might have wiped out the Japanese race. We were looking at as many as a million casualties with 100k at least dead on our side.

kevin swears up and down that we didn't need to drop the bombs or invade the mainland.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Kevin's point is that it is wrong to vaporize civilians for actions of soldiers. How do you feel about that? Do you think that killing tens of thousands of civilians is justified by the fact that their army was waging war against our country?

Once again both targets were military, Both had war factories, I think both were ports and I know one of them was the Headquarters for an entire Army forming to defend the Island. More Japanese died in the fire bombs then either nuke attack.

If we had invaded we might have wiped out the Japanese race. We were looking at as many as a million casualties with 100k at least dead on our side.

kevin swears up and down that we didn't need to drop the bombs or invade the mainland.

Side to side as well.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Kevin's point is that it is wrong to vaporize civilians for actions of soldiers. How do you feel about that? Do you think that killing tens of thousands of civilians is justified by the fact that their army was waging war against our country?

my point is that a mainland invasion of Japan (which would have happened without dropping the bombs) would have killed hundreds of thousand of americans and millions of japanese. how do you feel about that?

My point is that a mainland invasion of Japan was as unnecessary as dropping the bombs, but we just had to have an unconditional surrender regardless of the lives lost in the process.

Read the documents dumb ass all Japan offered was a stop to the war. They would have retained everything they still held. Including China. They had no intention of surrendering. Even after 2 Atom bombs the Army which ran the Government REFUSED to surrender. It required a direct intervention by the Emperor and then the Army attempted a coup to stop him.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

my point is that a mainland invasion of Japan (which would have happened without dropping the bombs) would have killed hundreds of thousand of americans and millions of japanese. how do you feel about that?

My point is that a mainland invasion of Japan was as unnecessary as dropping the bombs, but we just had to have an unconditional surrender regardless of the lives lost in the process.

Read the documents dumb ass all Japan offered was a stop to the war. They would have retained everything they still held. Including China. They had no intention of surrendering. Even after 2 Atom bombs the Army which ran the Government REFUSED to surrender. It required a direct intervention by the Emperor and then the Army attempted a coup to stop him.

How horrible of them only wanting to stop the war. But... wait... Wouldn't that have meant no U.S. soldiers had to die, and no Japanese civilians?

 

[elvis]

my point is that a mainland invasion of Japan (which would have happened without dropping the bombs) would have killed hundreds of thousand of americans and millions of japanese. how do you feel about that?

My point is that a mainland invasion of Japan was as unnecessary as dropping the bombs, but we just had to have an unconditional surrender regardless of the lives lost in the process.

Read the documents dumb ass all Japan offered was a stop to the war. They would have retained everything they still held. Including China. They had no intention of surrendering. Even after 2 Atom bombs the Army which ran the Government REFUSED to surrender. It required a direct intervention by the Emperor and then the Army attempted a coup to stop him.

what role did the soviet union's declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria play?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

My point is that a mainland invasion of Japan was as unnecessary as dropping the bombs, but we just had to have an unconditional surrender regardless of the lives lost in the process.

Read the documents dumb ass all Japan offered was a stop to the war. They would have retained everything they still held. Including China. They had no intention of surrendering. Even after 2 Atom bombs the Army which ran the Government REFUSED to surrender. It required a direct intervention by the Emperor and then the Army attempted a coup to stop him.

what role did the soviet union's declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria play?

None. It had not happened yet. The Emperor surrendered because of the two atomic bombs.

 

[GilbertArizona]

I figure that he and his generation are owed my gratitude for their great sacrifices. I'll simply pay my respect by passing along his obituary from the Las Vegas newspaper. May he rest in peace.

Morris Jeppson Obituary: Morris Jeppson?s Obituary by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Morris Richard Jeppson was born in Logan, Utah, June 23, 1922. Loved by all, and having had a life rich in family, travel and love, he passed away peacefully March 30, 2010, at Summerlin Hospital. Morris Richard "Dick" served in the military from 1943 to 1946. He attended Air Force electronics/radar schools at Yale, Harvard and MIT, after which he was assigned to Los Alamos, where he worked on the development/field testing of the first atomic bombs. He was a member of the 509th Composite Group and was the weapons test officer on the Enola Gay flight that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Following this historic event, Dick went on to have a successful career working in electronics and applied radiation at University of California Radiation Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory; and he founded several companies, including Applied Radiation Corporation and Cryodry Corporation. He was the director of the Optical Research and Development Corporation and the director of Humphrey Instruments. He authored numerous patents on industrial microwave equipment/processes and energy/resource systems. Dick had a brilliant mind to the end and over his lifetime he developed many inventions that were well ahead of their time. He is survived by his wife, Molly Ann (Hussey) Jeppson; brother, Lawrence Jeppson of Salt Lake City; daughters, Nancy Hoskins of Colorado Springs, Colo., Carol English of Medford, Ore., Sally Jeppson of Gackle, N.D., and Jane Ross of Midland, Ontario; sons, Mike Sullivan of Pahrump, and John Sullivan of Lakeport, Calif.; 11 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. Dick enjoyed travel, reading, research, good food, bridge and gardening. He was a devoted husband and loving father. No funeral services will take place.

 

[Xenophon]

So playing your part in the massacring of the Japanese people makes you a war hero? Sounds more like a war criminal to me.

War criminal? How so?

You don't actually believe that peace was going to be achieved in the near future do you? Japan was barely ready to give up AFTER the second bomb was dropped. We would of had to go in, and in the process not only would millions of soldiers on each side had been lost but millions of innocent civilians.

PLUS, Japan would of been turned into rubble.

Actually it's pretty clear they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the fighting before the bombs were dropped, and our intelligence knew this.

On terms to restore the pre war situation, something both rediculous and unacceptable after 4 years of war.