Lieutenant Jeppson was assigned to help the Manhattan Project scientists who were assembling the bomb at Los Alamos, N.M., to understand its electronic devices. The bomb was dropped at 8:15 in the morning and exploded 43 seconds later, creating an inferno that left tens of thousands dead or dying. Tibbets Jr., brought the four-engine B-29 Superfortress over Hiroshima. Parsons of the Navy, the officer in overall control of the uranium bomb known as Little Boy, Lieutenant Jeppson checked its circuits, timing devices and radar components.Īfter a flawless six-and-a-half-hour flight, the bomb systems working perfectly, the Enola Gay’s pilot, Col. 6, 1945, Lieutenant Jeppson was making his first and only combat flight.Īs the assistant to Capt. When the Enola Gay lifted off from the island of Tinian in the South Pacific in the early hours of Aug. His death was announced by his wife, Molly.
Jeppson, who was 87 and lived in Las Vegas, was the next-to-last survivor of the 12 men who carried out history’s first atomic strike. Jeppson, an Army Air Forces electronics specialist who helped arm the atomic bomb aboard the Enola Gay as it flew to Hiroshima, died March 30 at a hospital in Las Vegas.
