(AP)įifteen hundred miles to the north-northwest, under a waning crescent moon, lay a 400-year-old Japanese city most Americans probably had never heard of but whose name was about to be etched into the pages of history. Shumard, assistant engineer and Staff Sgt. Jacob Besser, radar countermeasures officer. Tibbets, 509th Composite Group commanding officer and pilot Capt. John Porter, ground maintenance officer Capt. This undated photo includes most members of 12-man crew of the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima posing in the Mariana Islands in 1945 during World War II.