thedrifter
09-08-08, 07:22 AM
Airman worked on Enola Gay
Bonnie Rochman, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - At the Northern Virginia annex of the National Air and Space Museum, a silvery B-29 rests, its mirrored fuselage bare, save for the name inscribed in black letters: "ENOLA GAY."
The cigar-shaped bomber played a dramatic role in the World War II tale of a Durham native who died recently.
Merle Elliott was a flight engineer aboard the Enola Gay, which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His claim to fame, he liked to tell people, was installing fresh spark plugs in preparation for the mission that ushered in the chilling era of nuclear weapons.
Elliott died of a heart attack May 30. He was 85.
Merle Everett Elliott was born in Durham in 1922 to millworker parents and lived there until 2003, when he moved to Raleigh after an ice storm paralyzed the Triangle for days and destroyed his home.
Elliott grew up in west Durham near Duke University. At the time, the neighborhood consisted mostly of diminutive mill houses. Local kids played softball and baseball, sometimes challenging Duke players to a match.
As a boy, Elliott was a dreamer. He wanted to be the best, to go and see and do. His brother had joined the Marines. Elliott soon joined the service too, choosing the military over going to work in the textile or tobacco industries.
"He decided he wanted to dust his pants off and go see the world," said his son, John Elliott.
In 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces and learned to work on airplanes, becoming one of the airmen who would help end the war with Japan. The two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki persuaded Japan to surrender, in turn saving thousands of lives by averting a U.S. invasion.
En route to the Pacific theater, Elliott and his comrades stopped at an air base outside Salt Lake City. Most of the fellows in the 509th Composite Group went out, partied, flirted with girls. But his contingent, the 393rd Bomb Squadron, was not allowed off base. They reached Honolulu but were not permitted to leave the ship. They wondered why.
Still, they reveled in getting whatever they requested -- Cokes, Hershey's chocolate, cigarettes and beer, steak and potatoes.
Grateful for the largess, they were nevertheless suspicious. They were the envy of the other servicemen, but they assumed the worst: Were they being readied for a suicide mission? It seemed likely.
"No one else was sequestered like they were, and no one else was getting what they got," said John Elliott.
The men knew they were on their way to Tinian Island, one of the main bombing bases for B-29 Superfortress attacks.
Once they arrived, Elliott busied himself with the upkeep of the complex and hard-to-maintain Superfortresses, Enola Gay included, and hopping aboard mock bombing runs across the Sea of Japan.
Everyone noticed the off-limits, large, wooden crate plopped on the tarmac. A sentry stood guard. Questions about what was inside went unanswered. Soon enough, everyone knew not even to ask.
Elliott was not scheduled to fly the day Col. Paul Tibbets unleashed the bomb on the unsuspecting Japanese city below. But he had installed a new batch of spark plugs on the plane the day before, as he always did after the Enola Gay returned from a flight.
Elliott's family didn't find about his connection to the Enola Gay -- named for Tibbet's mother -- until Elliott returned home after the war.
He filled his family in on the details but didn't dwell on the magnitude of what he'd been a part of, never speaking of how he felt or what he thought about immediately after the bomb fell.
Like other men home from the war, he busied himself re-establishing his life.
He went to work as a letter carrier in Durham. He met his wife, a nurse at Watts Hospital, and later divorced her.
He kept delivering the mail, letter by letter, for 32 years. Every so often, he'd speak of the Enola Gay.
He didn't boast about it, but as he grew older, neither did he keep quiet when he suspected someone wasn't familiar with the plane's history.
"He'd ask people, 'Do you know about the Enola Gay?'" said Elliott's sister, Sue Fuller. "He'd tell them, 'This is what gave you your freedom.' "
In March of this year, as Elliott was growing sicker, his son asked where his wartime medals were.
Elliott had no idea.
His son contacted Sen. Richard Burr's office for assistance. Replacement medals eventually arrived, along with a personal note from the senator explaining he'd taken the liberty of having an American flag flown above the U.S. Capitol to honor Elliott. When the flag finally arrived, a certificate indicated it had adorned the Capitol on May 29, the last full day of Elliott's life.
The coincidence gave Elliott's son goosebumps.
(Merle Elliott is survived by a son, two daughters and four grandchildren.)
Life Stories
bonnie.rochman@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4871
Ellie
Bonnie Rochman, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - At the Northern Virginia annex of the National Air and Space Museum, a silvery B-29 rests, its mirrored fuselage bare, save for the name inscribed in black letters: "ENOLA GAY."
The cigar-shaped bomber played a dramatic role in the World War II tale of a Durham native who died recently.
Merle Elliott was a flight engineer aboard the Enola Gay, which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His claim to fame, he liked to tell people, was installing fresh spark plugs in preparation for the mission that ushered in the chilling era of nuclear weapons.
Elliott died of a heart attack May 30. He was 85.
Merle Everett Elliott was born in Durham in 1922 to millworker parents and lived there until 2003, when he moved to Raleigh after an ice storm paralyzed the Triangle for days and destroyed his home.
Elliott grew up in west Durham near Duke University. At the time, the neighborhood consisted mostly of diminutive mill houses. Local kids played softball and baseball, sometimes challenging Duke players to a match.
As a boy, Elliott was a dreamer. He wanted to be the best, to go and see and do. His brother had joined the Marines. Elliott soon joined the service too, choosing the military over going to work in the textile or tobacco industries.
"He decided he wanted to dust his pants off and go see the world," said his son, John Elliott.
In 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces and learned to work on airplanes, becoming one of the airmen who would help end the war with Japan. The two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki persuaded Japan to surrender, in turn saving thousands of lives by averting a U.S. invasion.
En route to the Pacific theater, Elliott and his comrades stopped at an air base outside Salt Lake City. Most of the fellows in the 509th Composite Group went out, partied, flirted with girls. But his contingent, the 393rd Bomb Squadron, was not allowed off base. They reached Honolulu but were not permitted to leave the ship. They wondered why.
Still, they reveled in getting whatever they requested -- Cokes, Hershey's chocolate, cigarettes and beer, steak and potatoes.
Grateful for the largess, they were nevertheless suspicious. They were the envy of the other servicemen, but they assumed the worst: Were they being readied for a suicide mission? It seemed likely.
"No one else was sequestered like they were, and no one else was getting what they got," said John Elliott.
The men knew they were on their way to Tinian Island, one of the main bombing bases for B-29 Superfortress attacks.
Once they arrived, Elliott busied himself with the upkeep of the complex and hard-to-maintain Superfortresses, Enola Gay included, and hopping aboard mock bombing runs across the Sea of Japan.
Everyone noticed the off-limits, large, wooden crate plopped on the tarmac. A sentry stood guard. Questions about what was inside went unanswered. Soon enough, everyone knew not even to ask.
Elliott was not scheduled to fly the day Col. Paul Tibbets unleashed the bomb on the unsuspecting Japanese city below. But he had installed a new batch of spark plugs on the plane the day before, as he always did after the Enola Gay returned from a flight.
Elliott's family didn't find about his connection to the Enola Gay -- named for Tibbet's mother -- until Elliott returned home after the war.
He filled his family in on the details but didn't dwell on the magnitude of what he'd been a part of, never speaking of how he felt or what he thought about immediately after the bomb fell.
Like other men home from the war, he busied himself re-establishing his life.
He went to work as a letter carrier in Durham. He met his wife, a nurse at Watts Hospital, and later divorced her.
He kept delivering the mail, letter by letter, for 32 years. Every so often, he'd speak of the Enola Gay.
He didn't boast about it, but as he grew older, neither did he keep quiet when he suspected someone wasn't familiar with the plane's history.
"He'd ask people, 'Do you know about the Enola Gay?'" said Elliott's sister, Sue Fuller. "He'd tell them, 'This is what gave you your freedom.' "
In March of this year, as Elliott was growing sicker, his son asked where his wartime medals were.
Elliott had no idea.
His son contacted Sen. Richard Burr's office for assistance. Replacement medals eventually arrived, along with a personal note from the senator explaining he'd taken the liberty of having an American flag flown above the U.S. Capitol to honor Elliott. When the flag finally arrived, a certificate indicated it had adorned the Capitol on May 29, the last full day of Elliott's life.
The coincidence gave Elliott's son goosebumps.
(Merle Elliott is survived by a son, two daughters and four grandchildren.)
Life Stories
bonnie.rochman@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4871
Ellie