A pilot dropped the atomic bomb, then journaled: ‘My God what have we done’

Shortly after dawn on Aug. 6, 1945, Capt. Robert A. Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, wrote in his notebook that the clouds below him were dispersing and the weather looked good for the rest of the flight to Hiroshima.

“We are now ab0ut 2 hrs from bombs away,” Lewis, 26, wrote as the B-29 approached the Japanese city it was about to destroy. “The bomb is now alive. And it’s a funny feeling knowing it’s right in back of you.”

As the attack began, Lewis wrote: “There will be a short intermission while we bomb our target.”

What followed was what he called a “blow by blow description” of the dropping of the first atomic bomb, and his famous reaction: “My God what have we done.”

Between 70,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly, historians estimate, and thousands more would die in the coming months. Hiroshima was obliterated.

Lewis’s account, which he wrote during and after the bombing, has just been put up for sale by Dan Whitmore, a rare book dealer in Pasadena, California, who is handling it on consignment for the wealthy American owner. Asking price: $950,000.

This is the fifth time it has hit the market. It first sold at auction for $37,000 in 1971. Lewis, who was present at the auction, reportedly said he believed it was of great historical value, “and I didn’t know what else to do with it.”

It last sold in 2022 for $543,000, according to Whitmore’s printed description of the notebook.

“It’s up there as one of probably the most important documents from World War II,” Whitmore said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post. “In a lot of ways, it’s such a pivotal moment for the entire world in the 20th century.”

Lewis wrote his account at the behest of William L. Laurence, a science reporter for the New York Times, who added some minor editing afterward.

Laurence was supposed to fly on the Hiroshima mission, but arrived too late at the bomber’s base on Tinian Island, in the Pacific Ocean, according to entries in the notebook. (He was able to go on the atomic bombing mission to Nagasaki three days later.)

Lewis thought the assignment might earn him “a few dollars,” according to Enola Gay historians Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts. The Enola Gay is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, in Chantilly, Virginia, outside Washington.

The notebook, which is roughly 10 inches by 8 inches, says “Property of Robert A. Lewis … Bombing of Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945” on its cover.

Lewis states that much of his writing occurred in the almost complete darkness of the overnight flight. At one point he ran out of ink and continued in pencil.

The account begins as a letter to his parents: “Dear Mom and Dad.”

Lewis lists the name of the plane, “Enola Gay,” the 12 men on board, and what appears to be an incorrect radio call sign, “Dimples 12,” for the aircraft. The actual call sign was “Dimples 82,” according to histories of the mission.

Approaching Hiroshima at 31,000 feet, Lewis wrote, “we … had about a 4 minutes run on a perfectly open target.”

The bomb was dropped at about 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time. It took 43 seconds to fall to its detonation altitude of 1,890 feet.

Lewis wrote that there was a flash, followed by two shock waves that reached the plane from the blast six miles below.

We “then turned the ship so we could observe the results,” Lewis wrote. “And there in front of our eyes was with out a doubt the greatest explosion man has ever witnessed.”

“Everyone on the ship is actually dumbstruck even though we had expected something fierce,” Lewis wrote, as he looked out the large cockpit windows of the B-29.

A few days later, Lewis added a more reflective page to his account, perhaps on his own or at the urging of Laurence, the reporter, Whitmore said.

The new page was taped into a place in the narrative right after the bombing. The yellowed tape is still there.

“I am certain the entire crew felt this experience was more than anyone human had ever thought possible,” Lewis wrote.

“It just seems impossible to comprehend,” he wrote. “Just how many … did we kill? I honestly have the feeling of groping for words to explain this or I might say My God what have we done. If I live a hundred years I’ll never quite get these few minutes out my mind.”

On the back of the notebook, Lewis drew a sketch of the mushroom cloud that rose after the bomb exploded. “Various colors,” he wrote, “40,000 ft plus,” referring to the height of the cloud. He then noted the time, “09:30,” and date “8/6/45” and his initials “R.A.L.”

Lewis, a Brooklyn native who was known as “Bud,” was an excellent pilot. He had once taken aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh up in a B-29, according to Thomas and Morgan-Witts.

Lewis had considered the Enola Gay his plane, and was incensed when the pilot, Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., had his mother’s name stenciled on the nose of the bomber before takeoff.

Whitmore, the book dealer, said that he plans to exhibit the notebook at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which begins April 30.

“I think that there are collectors in lots of different collecting areas who would find this document really compelling,” he said. “I think it’s entirely possible that an institution will find a donor or encourage someone to donate it.”