“We both thought it was very unusual that two people, through no choice of our own really, happen to be at a very historical place in history and we happen to live together,” Starnes said. He was the officer on deck of the USS Missouri and greeted Japanese leaders as they officially surrendered. Starnes and Kirk lived in the same Stone Mountain community.
“I told him, I said, ‘Dutch, I understand you were 12 seconds late, that’s not a good navigator you know?’ And he said, ‘I made a little mistake and it worked.’” Kirk, who everyone called Dutch, was the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan effectively ending World War II. “He was one of many people who was willing to give everything to save our freedom.”
“I know we fought a good war, World War II,” James Starnes said. Channel 2’s Erin Coleman sat down with one of his good friends who said the nation lost a great American.
