It was quite prophetic considering that in a matter of hours they would be gambling again – and this time with much higher stakes. To pass the time, some of the crew – including navigator Dutch, bombardier Tom Ferebee, and pilot Paul Tibbets, played poker. The date was 5 August 1945, and tomorrow morning they were to drop the first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It was a common affliction among soldiers before a mission, but then again Dutch and his fellow 11 crewmates stationed on the Pacific island of Tinian had more reason than most to be suffering from insomnia that night. Theodore Van Kirk, known to everyone as ‘Dutch’, was having trouble sleeping. Paul Tibbets and bombardier Major Thomas Ferebee after dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima All About History interviewed Dutch shortly before his death last year, and he remained adamant that using nuclear weapons was the right course of action. He was the navigator on the Enola Gay, which, on 6 August 1945, dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Having served 58 missions in Africa and Europe during World War II, Theodore ‘Dutch’ Van Kirk transferred to the 509th Composite Group.