“I was originally classified for training as a pilot however, during school I was unable to conduct my solo flight in the allotted time and was eventually ‘washed out’ of the program,” said Gackenbach. A short while later, 20-year-old Gackenbach decided to follow his childhood dream of becoming a pilot and enlisted in the U.S.
Upon graduating from Allentown High School, Pennsylvania in 1941, Gackenbach prophetically took a job at the Bethlehem Steel Company as an inspector of bombs and shell casings for the military. Unbeknownst to him at the time, the mission signified the first time a nuclear device had been used in warfare. 6, 1945, where “Little Boy”, a 9,000-pound uranium-235 atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Gackenbach was a second lieutenant, aircraft navigator and photographer who flew into the heart of Japan on Aug.
