US:The pilot of the aircraft which dropped the world's first atomic bomb used in warfare, Paul Tibbets, died yesterday aged 92.
Mr Tibbets flew the B-29 bomber Enola Gay which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.
He insisted almost to his dying day that he had no regrets about the mission and had no problem sleeping.
Mr Tibbets, who died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing that it would provide his detractors with a place to protest.
His historic mission in the aircraft named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of US involvement in the second World War and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare.
"I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing," Mr Tibbets told the Columbus Dispatch in a story published on the 60th anniversary of the bombing. "We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible."
He said in a 1975 interview: "I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did.
"You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. I sleep clearly every night."