39. Thomas Ferebee triggered the age of the atom
The B-29 named for its pilot’s mother, Enola Gay, remains widely known, as is the name of the pilot, Paul Tibbets. Tibbets flew the airplane over Hiroshima, but it was the aircrew’s bombardier, Thomas Wilson Ferebee, who guided the big airplane over its bomb run and triggered the release of the Little Boy bomb which devastated the city below and ushered in the age of the atomic, and later thermonuclear bomb. Ferebee elected to remain in the Army Air Forces and later the United States Air Force after the war, rising to the rank of colonel before retiring in 1970, having served during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War.