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5 in his hometown of Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Interviewing VanKirk for the book, she said, “was like sitting with your father at the kitchen table listening to him tell stories.”Ī funeral service was scheduled for VanKirk on Aug. VanKirk was energetic, very bright and had a terrific sense of humor, Dietz recalled Tuesday. VanKirk’s military career was chronicled in a 2012 book, “My True Course,” by Suzanne Dietz. “I know he was recognized as a war hero, but we just knew him as a great father,” Tom VanKirk said. Instead, he and his three siblings treasured a wonderful father, who was a great mentor and remained active and “sharp as a tack” until the end of his life. “I didn’t even find out that he was on that mission until I was 10 years old and read some old news clippings in my grandmother’s attic,” Tom VanKirk told the AP in a phone interview Tuesday. Like many World War II veterans, VanKirk didn’t talk much about his service until much later in his life when he spoke to school groups, his son said. He later moved from California to the Atlanta area to be near his daughter. Then he went to school, earned degrees in chemical engineering and signed on with DuPont, where he stayed until he retired in 1985. VanKirk stayed on with the military for a year after the war ended. It seemed a lot longer than 43 seconds,” VanKirk recalled. “I think everybody in the plane concluded it was a dud. They counted - one thousand one, one thousand two - reaching the 43 seconds they’d been told it would take for detonation, and heard nothing. They didn’t know whether the bomb would actually work and, if it did, whether its shockwaves would rip their plane to shreds. As the 9,000-pound bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” fell toward the sleeping city, he and his crewmates hoped to escape with their lives. He guided the bomber through the night sky, just 15 seconds behind schedule, he said. The mission went perfectly, VanKirk told the AP. VanKirk was teamed with pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee in Tibbets’ fledgling 509th Composite Bomb Group for Special Mission No. He had been the last surviving member of the Enola Gay crew since 2010 when Morris Jeppson, the assistant weaponeer, died. “But if anyone has one,” he added, “I want to have one more than my enemy.” The Enola Gay was named after the mother of pilot Paul Tibbets.