By Kirsten Buys
C & G Staff Writer

FARMINGTON HILLS — Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk was only 24 years old when he boarded the B-29 The Enola Gay and changed the history of the world by helping to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, leading to the end of World War II.

Exactly 63 years to the day since the bomb was dropped on Aug. 6, 1945, Van Kirk spoke to a sold-out crowd of hundreds who gathered at the William M. Costick Center in Farmington Hills to get his autograph, hear him speak and ask him questions.

“It brings it all to life, to actually meet somebody historical like this,” said John Wisniewski, who traveled 100 miles from Sandusky, Mich. “I came to see living history before it’s gone.”

Van Kirk, a navigator on the Hiroshima mission, is one of only two of the dozen men on the mission who still is alive to tell of the days leading up to the dropping of the bomb.

“Nobody ever mentioned the word ‘nuclear,’ nobody ever mentioned the word ‘atomic,’” Van Kirk said in a video shown before he spoke. “We just knew it was going to do a lot of damage. It was going to be a large destructive force.”

Van Kirk said he continues to stand behind the government’s decision to drop the bomb, and a second on Nagasaki two days later. Dozens of veterans came to thank Van Kirk for his part in ending the war, saying they could have died in the planned Japanese invasion the bombing put a stop to.

“If it wasn’t for him and his crew, I wouldn’t be here,” said World War II veteran Charles Finkelstein.

The Rochester Hills resident said his 604th Tank Destroyer Battalion was scheduled to be the second wave of the invasion, and was unaware the Army was preparing to drop a bomb.

“We were relieved when we found out,” he said. “We were getting ready (for the invasion). It would have been the biggest massacre in the history of the world.”

The event was hosted by and served as a fundraiser for Southeast Michigan Mensa, which brings in speakers and experts to do presentations on a variety of topics each month.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Ken Gass, chapter president, said. “It’s great that the public was so interested in a historical figure who played such a pivotal role. We’re so pleased to be able to offer it.”

Van Kirk, who lives in Georgia, said he would continue to tour the country, telling anyone who will listen about the mission and what it accomplished.

“Kids today don’t even know why we dropped the atomic bomb — we dropped the atomic bomb to end the killing,” he said. “There’s no questions the casualties were horrible. You can say what you want, but you can never convince me the atomic bombs, even with all of the lives they took, did not save a lot of lives. That is my opinion about the bomb and I will argue with anybody who wants to argue about it.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kirsten Buys at kbuys@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1030.