Pilots had been practicing sharp diving turns and bombing runs with hyper-fast getaways. Recently the 509th had moved to the South Pacific, continuing training at an air base on the island of Tinian. Not one man in the 509th had any knowledge yet of what he was training for, with the exception of one—a crack pilot who had been specifically chosen to fly the B-29 that would drop the first bomb, Colonel Paul Tibbets of Quincy, Illinois.
