It was quite probably the nlost important

event of World War II. Its consequences were

greater than those of any other event of the

war. Yet the story of the bombing of ttiro-

shima, the momentous flight into the futurc of

the B-29 Enola Gay, has never before been

revealed from firsthand sources. Here, then,

is a reading experience you will not ever for-

get, from a book that has already received

worldwide recognition.

Award-winning writcrs Gordon Thomas

and Max Morgan Witts once again separate

myth from reality as they retrace the steps that

led the world into the atomic age. Major Claude

Eatherly, believed by so many to be the Hiro-

shima pilot who later went insane out of re-

morse, wasn t aboard the Enola Gay. The real

pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, was said to be

unwilling to talk. He talked to the authors of

this book for fifty hours. The authors then

talked to each surviving crew member, to the

scientists and "soldiers whose war effort pointed

in one direction, toward August 6, 1945, when

the first aerial drop of a uranium bomb wiped

out most of a city but, ironically, did not stop

the war.

The authors, known for Voyage o/ the

Damned and Guernica, are famous for obeying

one edict well : get both sides. And so in Enola

Gay, counterpointed against the Americans ex-

periences, we get the firsthand story of the Jap-

anese on the ground: Lieutenant Yokoyama,

the zealous young officer whose antiaircraft

battery protected Hiroshima from aerial attack;

Mayor Awaya of Hiroshima, who brought his

family from the dangers of Tokyo to the safety

of Hiroshima; Genial Hata of the Second Area

Army, who regarded Hiroshima as the center

of the vast network of defenses against the ex-

pected Allied invasion; Professor Asada, the

world-renowned scientist who thought he was perfecting a weapon even more terrifying than the atomic bomb;Dr.Shima,whose hospital was at ground zero.