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He was survived by his wife, Mary Ann Ferebee, who donated his collection of military documents and objects to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. He died at his home in Windermere, Florida at the age of 81. Like Tibbets, Ferebee never expressed regret for his role in the bombing, saying "it was a job that had to be done." He then worked as a real estate agent in and around Orlando, Florida. Air Force in December 1970 at McCoy AFB, Florida as a master navigator (bombardier) with the rank of colonel. Ferebee spent most of his USAF career in the Strategic Air Command, serving during the Cold War and in Vietnam. Japan surrendered on August 10 and World War II ended.' The marker erected at the city limits simply reads: 'Family Home. Like Tibbets, Ferebee remained in the military in the years after World War II as the U.S. A second atom bomb was dropped by a different crew on Nagasaki on August 9. In the summer of 1944, he was recruited by Colonel Paul Tibbets to be part of the 509th Composite Group which was formed to drop the atomic bomb. After two years of flight school, Ferebee was assigned as a bombardier in the European theater, completing more than 60 bombing missions. A knee injury kept him from service in the infantry but he was accepted into flight training. Description ENOLA GAY CREW: MORRIS JEPPSON Color photo of the Enola Gay, signed Morris R. After training for a small position with the Boston Red Sox and not making the team, he joined the Army. ENOLA GAY CREW (MORRIS JEPPSON) PHOTOGRAPH SIGNED. Talented in athletics since childhood, he earned awards in track, basketball, and football. In 1935, at age 17, he attended Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, NC. Primary materials from the O.R.D. on Textiles, Teachers and Troops, a digital repository of Greensboro historyįor more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.Thomas Wilson Ferebee was born on a farm outside Mocksville, North Carolina, as the third of eleven children.He never expressed regret about dropping the A-bomb, maintaining that it saved more lives than it took by ending the war sooner. Six days later, the Japanese government surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.įerebee retired from the U.S. On August 9, another bomber crew dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. During World War II he would fly sixty-four missions as a bombardier on a. Forty-three seconds later, the bomb detonated, instantly killing 70,000 people. Abstract: Thomas Ferebee of Mocksville joined the Army Air Corps in 1941. The 9,000-pound bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy,” tumbled from the plane’s belly and sped six miles to its target below. Ferebee, then 26 and a veteran of 64 combat missions, was napping and initially did not hear the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr., brief the crew about their top-secret mission.Īpproaching Hiroshima, Ferebee activated the plane’s automated Norden bombsight, centered its crosshairs on the Aioi Bridge and called “bomb away.” It was 8:15 a.m. from Tinian Island in the western Pacific. The 12-man crew aboard the B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off for Hiroshima at 2 a.m. Army Air Corps bombardier and Mocksville native, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On August 6, 1945, Major Thomas Wilson Ferebee, a U.S.