[StBernard] Louisiana brothers recall roles in bombing of Japan

[Westley Annis]

DENHAM SPRINGS, La. -- In the months that twin brothers Joe and Ben Graci of
New Orleans worked on the Pacific island of Tinian, Col. Paul Tibbets was
just another pilot they knew and the "Enola Gay" was just another bomber
that they and their comrades worked to keep flying in World War II.


That changed abruptly on Aug. 6, 1945.

When the B-29 Superfortress bomber flown by Tibbets dropped an atomic bomb
code named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan, it was just as big a surprise
to the men on Tinian as it was to the rest of the world. They found out
about it the next day.

"Everybody went wild," Joe Graci said.

On Aug. 9, a second bomb, code named "Fat Man," was dropped on Nagasaki
after the airplane "Bock's Car" also took off from Tinian, and Japan
surrendered five days later.

Joe Graci was an aircraft mechanic. Ben Graci was responsible for all the
parachutes for Tinian's 300 B-29s. Another New Orleanian, Phil Burst, did
sheet metal work, including work on the Enola Gay, Joe Graci said.

The Graci brothers enlisted in 1943. Knowing the likelihood that they would
be drafted, they enrolled in aircraft mechanics school at Delgado Community
College. With that skill, they were immediately sent to the Army Air Force
when they enlisted.

To learn about the B-29, they were sent to Tinker Field in Oklahoma. The
B-29 was 99 feet long, 29 feet 7 inches high and had a wingspan of 141 feet,
3 inches. Its empty weight was 69,000 pounds.

"They said, 'We're going to show you the airplane you're going to work on,'"
Ben Graci said. "They had this big monster in a hangar, and they had a B-17
under one wing and a P-40 underneath the other wing, to give you an idea how
big."

In 1944, the Gracis were shipped to Tinian, which the Marine Corps had
captured on Aug. 1, as part of the 20th Air Force, 313th Wing, 40th Bomb
Group. Tinian was valued for air bases the Japanese had built and which
would be used as a base from which to bomb Japan and support other military
missions. The same was true of Saipan, just six miles north of Tinian, and
Guam. Their 57-day voyage included several days of waiting for the island to
be secured.

The bombing campaign initially involved high-altitude missions dropping
high-explosive ordnance. When that proved ineffective, the B-29s switched to
night raids dropping incendiary bombs, which produced devastating
firestorms. In the summer of 1945, however, a different cargo arrived. Only
a few on the island knew what it was, but everyone else wondered.

Joe Graci said one of his buddies, whose name he can't recall, found that
the temptation to look at one of the bombs proved irresistible, and Graci
agreed to record the moment on film. The photo shows the soldier posing with
"Fat Man."

"He says, 'I'd like to see that bomb.' I said, 'You go pull the canvas and
I'll take the picture, and you run like hell,'" Graci said. "That's how we
got the picture. ... We could've got shot."

Being on a secure island base, that was about the only way they might have
succumbed to hostilities. For many fighting men, the war was a dirty slog.
Not so for those on Tinian. They worked regular hours, had hot meals and hot
showers. Once a week, they would go fishing on 40-foot boats.

"We had cigarettes. We had all the ice cream we wanted," Ben Graci said. "We
had Coca-Colas, ice. All that was there."

That relatively cushy lifestyle isn't something they usually share with
other World War II veterans, especially ground troops. Joe Graci recalls
being invited to a Veterans of Foreign Wars function when the subject of
wartime living conditions came up.

"They were Marines. They said, 'You had it rough?' I said, 'Whew, it was
real rough.' I didn't tell them nothing," he said. "We hated to tell people
how it was."

The dropping of the atomic bombs didn't immediately end work on Tinian.
Conventional bombing missions continued, and the Gracis say a third atomic
bomb was available had Japan not surrendered. Then, there were missions to
airdrop food and medicine to prisoner of war camps.

After the war, the brothers returned to New Orleans and both went to work
for the National Guard _ Ben as an auditor, Joe in charge of vehicle repair
at Jackson Barracks.

Ben Graci moved to Pumpkin Center after retiring. Joe had his Chalmette home
and almost all of his belongings destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He now
lives with a son and daughter-in-law in Denham Springs.

The Gracis agree with the decision to drop both of the atomic bombs,
something almost universally supported by Americans at the time. Years
later, Joe Graci said he spoke to a college audience that had some
dissenters.

"One girl got up and said, 'Don't you feel sorry for what you all did?'" he
said. "I said, 'No, ma'am. I'd do it all over again.'"

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