Joseph Anton "Joe" Stiborik

ROCKDALE -- The Radar operator on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, has died of a heart attack at age 69.

Joseph A. Stiborik, who died at his Texas home Saturday, was one of a crew of 12 who took the B-29 bomber on its historic mission on Aug. 6, 1945.

Stiborik seldom talked about his war experiences or about dropping the atomic bomb, said his sister, Cecila Dreyfus of Ann Arbor, Mich.  But he was often asked for his autograph and questioned about the bomb, she said.

"He never considered himself a hero, even though a lot of other people did," Mrs. Dreyfuss said.  "He was a soldier who had a job to do and he did it."

Stiborik was born in Taylor, Texas.  He attended Texas A&M University and studied cotton grading before volunteering for the Army Air Corps in 1942, his sister said.

"He was a super patriotic person," Mrs. Dr...   [ Read more » ]

ROCKDALE, Tex. [AP] -- Joseph A. Stiborik, 69, radar operator on the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, has died of a heart attack.

"He was a soldier who had a job to do and he did it," said his sister, Cecilia Dreyfuss of Ann Arbor, MI, on Monday. He never considered himself a hero, she said.

Mr. Stiborik, who died at home Saturday, was born in Taylor, Tex. He attended Texas A&M University and studied cotton grading before volunteering for the Army Air Corps in 1942, his sister said.

EARLY ON the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Mr. Stiborik and 11 other crewmen of the B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" took off for Hiroshima, a Japanese city of 300,000 that had been spared from heavy bombing up till then.

"They knew they were on a special mission, because the chaplains were there to see them off," Dreyfuss told the Austin American-Statesman. "Normally, the chaplains came out only after a miss...   [ Read more » ]

ROCKDALE, Tex., July 5— Joseph A. Stiborik, the radar operator on the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War II, died of a heart attack Saturday at his home here. He was 69 years old. Mr. Stiborik was among 11 crew members of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, which dropped the bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, killing or wounding more than half of Hiroshima's 300,000 residents. After the war, Mr. Stiborik was a maintenance superintendent for the Industrial Generating Company in this small east- central Texas town.