MILAM HISTORY
Monday was the 73rd anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
What does that have to do with Rockdale? The radar operator of the Enola Gay, the plane which delivered the weapon which played a role in ending World War II, lived in Rockdale for 20 years.
Joe Stiborik was the son of Czechoslovakian immigrants and a native of Taylor.
For 28 years, prior to his retirement in 1982, he was employed at Industrial Generating Company, living first in Taylor and then in Rockdale.
On Aug. 6, 1945, he was a member of the 12-man crew on board the B-29 which was about to fly into history.
Stiborik said most of the crew did not know exactly what their mission, named Operation Silver Plate, was.
The crew carried a payload nicknamed “The Thing” in its bomb bay.
“Each one of us knew something special was happening,” he recalled.
It was. The first atom bomb ever used in combat killed 100,000 people and destroyed 90 percent of the city.
Another was used five days later on Nagasaki. Four days later Japan surrendered.
Stiborik got used to being called by news media every Aug. 6 and was philosophical about his role in history.
“It was part of a dirty job that somebody had to do,” he always said. “If it hadn’t been us, somebody else would have had to.”
Stiborik died in 1984.
He had been planning a trip to Japan before he became ill.
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