My True Course: Dutch Van Kirk Northumberland to Hiroshima

On an early August morning in 1945, a Boeing Silverplate B-29 Superfortress took-off from the Tinian airfield amidst an unpublicized Hollywood-like atmosphere for the first atomic strike mission in the history of civilization. The young captain made his first notation, Time Takeoff 0245, as he again performed his duties to keep the pilot on course across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. So began Special Mission No. 13 with hopes to bring an end to the devastation and killing of millions that occurred during World War II. The aerial navigator's name was Theodore Jerome Van Kirk, a self-described Huck Finn Susquehanna river rat from Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Certain of America's entry into the war, twenty-year old Van Kirk entered the Army Air Corps in September 1941 with aspirations of being a pilot. Correspondence to and from home paint a portrait of hometown America, the experiences of an Air Cadet, the "war nerves" of a mother, and tales from the "greatest generation." Van Kirk charts his course across four continents and airfields around the world. After fifty-eight missions risking life and limb aboard B-17s, he believes the war is over for him. But the plans for the top-secret mission and Van Kirk's "yes" to a call from his former commander Paul Tibbets sets him on a journey to again accept the possibility of the ultimate sacrifice. Van Kirk served on the flying Fortresses during the early heavy bombing raids of German occupied Europe, the start of Operation Torch with General Eisenhower, attacks by enemy aircraft, tent living in the mountain regions of North Africa, and the unknown impact of the blast from the first uranium bomb. My True Course through Dutch's letters home and memories of the exploits of his own "Band of Brothers" are a testament to the sixteen million at arms who fought and served to bring an end to the Second World War.