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Two letters signed by Theodore ‘Dutch’ Van Kirk, navigator of the Enola Gay:
TLS signed “‘Dutch’ Theodore J. Van Kirk,” one page, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, no date. Letter to “John,” recounting his wartime service with Paul Tibbets and Tom Ferebee and the Hiroshima mission. In part: “After six-and-a-half hours of tough over water navigation, I placed the B-29 over target within seventeen seconds of the scheduled drop time of 0915. The Atomic bomb was dropped…It was probably the most important moment of the war. Forty three seconds later, the atomic bomb called ‘Little Boy’ exploded over Hiroshima, destroying the city and ushering in the dawn of the Nuclear Age. Col. Tibbets put the aircraft into a sharp right turn to avoid the blast, and after we past by it and saw the huge mushroom cloud, I gave Tibbets headings to get back to Tinian.” Van Kirk makes four handwritten corrections to the text.
ALS signed “Dutch,” four pages, 8.5 x 11, March 5, 1994. Letter to “Joe,” copied to Paul Tibbets and Tom Ferebee, disputing a dealer’s claimed stock of 6,000 crew-signed photos. In part: “The question is not how many books, pictures, lithos etc Clark has.—he can always print more if he wants to spend the money. The question is how many does he have with the authentic signatures of Tibbets, Ferebee and Van Kirk. And the answer, as far as pictures goes is not many and certainly not 6000…Incidentally, Clark doesn’t know I have these figures. He didn’t know I was counting. Does the fact that I maintained this count tell you something?” He proposes that Joe buy 300 photos on the condition that the dealer guarantee the signatures, adding: “This could be called several things, such as gotcha. or put up or shut up. Writing this much is worse than signing pictures.” In a postscript, he mocks the dealer’s new brochure: “I note the new brochure says we are available for ‘limited speaking engagements and tours’. What’s he smoking.” In overall fine condition.
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