Theodore Van Kirk (February 27, 1921 – July 28, 2014)

ATLANTA (AP) –  The last surviving member of the crew that dropped an atomic
bomb on Hiroshima, hastening the end of World War II and forcing the world into
the atomic age, has died in Georgia.

According to his son Tom Theodore VanKirk, also known as "Dutch," died Monday
of natural causes at the retirement home where he was living in Stone Mountain,
Georgia.

VanKirk flew nearly 60 bombing missions, but it was a single mission in the Pacific
that secured him a place in history. He was 24 years old when he served as the
navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic
bomb to be deployed in wartime over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6,
1945.