WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — The nearly 70 years that have passed since the Enola Gay dropped a 15-kiloton atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, have done nothing to quell feelings of fascination, awe and horror about the plane’s mission.

That was evident Friday at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, as more people than museum officials have seen in years crammed the auditorium to see and hear the last living crew member of history’s most famous B-29.

“Dropping the atomic bomb was a lesser of two evils,” said Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, who, as navigator of the Enola Gay, guided the Superfortress over the Japanese city of 350,000 people the morning of Aug. 6, 1945.

Now 91, Van Kirk sat comfortably in a padded chair on stage in the 500-seat Carney Auditorium — which was filled to capacity, with more standing in the back — and gave a relaxed, firsthand account of the mission that instantly incinerated 80,000 people.

Another 60,000 in Hiroshima died of radiation poisoning within months.

With the annual Vectren Dayton Air Show set for the weekend, Van Kirk’s testimony was a potent and timely reminder of the military’s might.

The greater evil Van Kirk referred to was a possible invasion of Japan that likely would have resulted in mass American casualties.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, prevented that.

“You’re going to kill a lot of civilians. You regret that,” Van Kirk explained. “But, if you’re in a war, you have to have the guts to fight the war to win it.”

The bomb leveled Hiroshima with an equivalent force of 15,000 tons of TNT.

“To this day,” he said, “I felt the Japanese thought we only had one bomb. That’s the reason they did not react after we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.”

Looking down out of the Enola Gay — named for the mother of the plane’s pilot, Paul W. Tibbets — Van Kirk recalled being able to see nothing but blackness.

“It reminded you of a pot of boiling oil,” he said.

He also recalled the exceptionally sharp turn Tibbets had made to get their B-29 as far from the blast as possible.

“People ask, ‘Does that maneuver have a name?’” he said. “Hell, yes. It’s called getting away from the bomb.”

Of the Enola Gay’s 12 crewmen, Van Kirk is the last survivor.

Tibbets, who lived in Columbus, died in 2007. He went without regrets, but knowing his controversial place in history, he explicitly asked to be buried without a headstone.

“The Japanese were a licked people before we ever dropped the atomic bombs,” Van Kirk said. “The (dropping of the) atomic bombs did not win the war. It just gave Japan the excuse to get out of the war and save face.”

When it came time to answer audience questions, Van Kirk mostly found himself recalling technical details of the mission — for example, the weight of the Enola Gay at takeoff.

But, when asked what a child should take away from his address, he didn’t mince words.

Said Van Kirk, “Don’t have another war.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or andrew.mcginn@coxinc.com