BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Russell Gackenbach pointed his Agfa PB 20 Viking camera downward, pressed his unbelieving eye to the viewfinder and clicked.
The image that Gackenbach, an Army Air Corps lieutenant, saw on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, was unlike anything he ever imagined he’d witness while growing up in Allentown.
- Allentown native Russell Gackenbach took the first photos of the atomic bomb explosion on Hiroshima
- The atomic bomb is back in the headlines with the Friday release of the motion picture, "Oppenheimer"
- The Allentown High and Lehigh University graduate was a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps
As the billowing, radioactive mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb rose angrily above Hiroshima, it was only then that Gackenbach fully understood why this particular mission during World War II was defined as extremely top secret.
A 1941 Allentown High School graduate, Gackenbach was a navigator aboard Necessary Evil, one of two B-29s that accompanied the Enola Gay, the plane from which the first atomic bomb was dropped.
In a literal flash, an estimated 90,000 were killed by the bomb, which was equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT.
Gackenbach, in a 2018 interview on National Public Radio, recalled the scene:
"As we were making the final approach to Hiroshima, we were flying at 30,000 feet over the city. And then the radio went dead. This was on purpose.
"Shortly after that, the bomb was dropped. We saw a very, very bright light and the start of a mushroom cloud. At the first chance I had, I got out of my seat. I went to the side navigator's window and quickly picked up my camera and took two photographs. I'll never forget that.
"After we turned away, headed home, things were very, very quiet. We just looked at each other. We didn't talk. We were all dumbfounded."
Gackenbach was also aboard the Enola Gay when a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. A week later, Japan surrendered.
That seminal moment in history has gained traction with the nationwide release Friday of the motion picture, “Oppenheimer,” which chronicles the work of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in developing the atomic bomb.
A story kept to himself
The mission of Gackenbach’s aircraft was strike observation and photography. In the aftermath of the blinding flash detonation of the bomb, Gackenbach took two photos from 16 miles from Hiroshima.
The crew of Necessary Evil did not know at the time they had dropped the first atom bomb.
“The only thing they were told was, there will be a cloud, but don’t go through it, go around it,” his daughter, Carol Jarosz, 73, said by phone on Friday from her home near Tampa, Fla.
“They had no idea what the mission was until they saw what they saw.”
“Dad never really talked much about it at home when he was young."Daughter Carol Jarosz
An eyewitness to history, Gackenbach for much of his life chose to keep those memories to himself, his daughter said.
“Dad never really talked much about it at home when he was young,” Jarosz said.
“Dad died four years ago here in Florida at 96. One of the only times he discussed the bomb was when I did a term paper for school. He had a bunch of information from being there and also from newspaper clippings he saved.
“It was only when he got older and started going to reunions, places where he and the guys remembered the events that day, that he opened up. Other than that, it wasn’t brought up in the house.”
'We were at war'
While some factions condemned the United States for the killing of nearly 200,000 Japanese civilians in an attempt to end the war, Gackenbach wasn’t among them.
“He would always explain, ‘We were at war.’”Carol Jarosz, daughter of Army Air Corps lieutenant Russell Gackenbach
“Every time dad was asked if he had any regrets, he always said no,” Jarosz said. “He said he was an employee of the Army Air Corps, that he was just doing the job he was told to do. He said the Japanese and Germans were also developing the bomb.
“He would always explain, ‘We were at war.’”
Jarosz described her father as a 5-foot-9-inch tall, reserved individual who loved reading and gardening. He was an active member of Kiwanis Club and the Methodist Church when the family moved to New Jersey.
Prior to the war, Gackenbach was employed as an inspector of bomb and shell casings at Bethlehem Steel Co.
Upon discharge from the Army, he went on to get a bachelor's degree in Metallurgical Engineering at Lehigh University in 1950.
He was employed as a materials-corrosion engineer for a chemical-pharmaceutical firm in New Jersey for 35 years. He also served as a consultant for 10 years before moving to Melbourne, Fla.
A small world
Gackenbach’s role in history is primarily a footnote. But he fully understood the importance of the event, for years visiting schools to deliver talks about the bombing.
One of the two photos Gackenbach took that day high above Japan was gifted to Lehigh University; the other was auctioned for $20,000.
High above the world on that fateful day, Gackenbach learned just how small it truly is.
On the day of the bombing of Hiroshima, Gackenbach was joined on the Necessary Evil flight by Maj. Bernard Waldman, a nuclear physicist. Gackenbach was under direct orders to assist him with the compiling of data on the mission.
“When the mission was completed, Major Waldman told my father his accent was familiar to him,” Jarosz said. “When my father said he was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, Waldman asked if he knew where East Rock Road in Mountainville was.
“When my father said he did, Waldman said, ‘Wow, that’s where my parents live. Small world.'”
