‘My God what have we done’: Enola Gay pilot’s combat notebook is for sale

In a United States War Department-issued “Line of Position” notebook, Capt. Robert A. Lewis begins like many service member letters, with a “Dear Mom + Dad.” But this log, dated Aug. 6, 1945, is unlike any other entry from World War II.

Lewis, the co-pilot of the B-29 Enola Gay, was en route to Japan from the Pacific island of Tinian when he began recording. Now, his account, written during and in the immediate aftermath of dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, is for sale.

His “blow by blow description,” which includes his famous reaction: “My God what have we done,” has just been put up for sale by Dan Whitmore, a rare book dealer in Pasadena, California, the Washington Post was first to report.

This will be the fifth time that Lewis’ record has appeared at auction: the first being sold for $37,000 by Sotheby’s in 1971. Lewis, present for the auction, reportedly said that he believed that the account was of great historical importance, adding that he “didn’t know what else to do with it.”

It sold once again for $85,000 at Sotheby’s in 1978; $391,000 at Christie’s in 2002 (as part of the Malcolm Forbes sale); and $543,000 at Heritage in 2022, according to Whitmore.

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Source: Military Times
Website: www.militarytimes.com