80 years after Hiroshima, the legacy of a Texas pilot lives on

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. For one son of the Lone Star State who flew over Hiroshima that morning, it was a day that haunted him forever. 

Claude Eatherly, a native of North Texas, piloted a weather support plane that day, but as time went on, he became a prominent critic of the decision to drop the bomb and a vocal anti-nuclear activist.

Eatherly was one of approximately 90 people who participated in the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan, according to Anne Harrington, associate professor of international relations at Cardiff University.

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Eatherly piloted the Straight Flush weather plane which flew over Hiroshima to look for cloud cover in advance of the bombing. He gave the “all clear” that morning, indicating clear conditions for visual targeting. 

At 8:15 am, the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy,” on the city, instantly killing tens of thousands of civilians. Three days later, on Aug. 9, the second bomb — “Fat Man” — was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, resulting in similar civilian casualties. 

Eatherly would regret his involvement in the bombing for the rest of his life. He spent years trying to fight the narrative that the atomic bombings were necessary to end the war. 

“He’s someone who has been forgotten by time in a sense,” Harrington told Texas Standard. “He lived with a profound amount of guilt about his role in this event, and he couldn’t stand being called a hero.” 

Hiroshima marked a turning point in the history of mankind, Harrington argues. No longer did mass killing require the participation of hundreds. It was now available at the click of a button.

Eatherly was one of the few people involved in the bombing who struggled with the moral implications of this level of destruction.

“Of this group of people who participated in this, he was the only one who in any type of protracted fashion seemed to grapple with what it meant to be an individual who was so close to being able to do such profound damage and destruction,” Harrington said. 

After the war, Eatherly was discharged from the Air Force for cheating on a qualification exam and joined a sketchy group of adventurists who wanted to overthrow the Cuban government.

Guilt-ridden, Eatherly turned to petty crime, seeking the punishment he felt he deserved for his role in the bombing — a diagnosed psychiatric disorder. Eventually, he began a correspondence with the German philosopher Günther Anders, who helped him make sense of his place in history.

“He was one of the few people who was really deeply impacted by what that meant — what that meant for humanity, what that meant for him as an individual. And keep in mind, he’s just a kind of ordinary guy, right? He grew up on a farm in Texas, like lots of other people did. And somehow history selected him to be the person who gave the thumbs up and said, ‘Yeah, go ahead. Kill that entire city.’” 

Eatherly spent his later years trying to connect with survivors of the bombing. He corresponded with the “Hiroshima Maidens,” a group of young women disfigured by the bombing. According to Harrington, he was the only one involved in the bombing to issue a formal apology to the Japanese. 

Eatherly’s story was well known at the time, but he remained a controversial figure. 

“There was a lot of debate about whether or not he was simply a type of malingerer who wanted to draw attention to himself… Or if this was something more genuine and was something where he really did feel in some way connected to the victims,” Harrington said.

Nevertheless, for Harrington, Eatherly’s story remains a warning, especially when we so easily forget the ongoing threat of nuclear war. 

“We live under the threat of global destruction on this extremely short timeline,” Harrington said. “If there’s something that I would want listeners to take away from this moment of commemoration is that we need to think about what that means for us now.”

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