‘My God what have we done?’: Copy of Hiroshima pilot’s log sells for US$50,000

A copy of a deeply moving pilot’s log, written during the top-secret Enola Gay mission that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, was auctioned in New York on Wednesday for US$50,000 (HK$388,000).
Robert Lewis, American co-pilot of the B-29 bomber, made the copy in 1945 at the request of the then-science editor at The New York Times, and it includes a pencil sketch of the mushroom cloud, Bonhams auction house said.
Lewis wrote the original log on August 6, 1945 as he flew to and from Hiroshima, disguised as a letter to “Mom and Dad” because as there was to be no official account of the top-secret mission, Bonhams said.
“I am certain the entire crew felt this experience was more than anyone human had ever thought possible,” Lewis wrote in the log. “It just seems impossible to comprehend. Just how many Japs did we kill?
“I honestly have the feeling of groping for words to explain this... My God what have we done,” he wrote.

The original was sold at auction for US$391,000 in 2002 by Christie’s.