"My father grew up during the Great Depression, one of six children; his father was a plumber. He graduated high school at eighteen, never being in a plane, and seven years later commanded a plane that ended a World War and changed the course of history."

"He had a friend who said,'Let’s go for an airplane ride', so they went to an airfield outside of Boston where for two bucks you could get a ride. They landed and he said he knew what he was going to do the rest of his life. He told his mom, and she said, 'Like heck you are.'"

"They didn't have a lot of money, so he joined the Army Air Corps. He took some test, became a cadet in 1940 and on December 8, 1941 became Second Lieutenant Sweeney. He ended up in Florida at Eglin Field and became a test pilot, qualifying in over 60 aircraft. One day a big, big, huge, 'Cadillac of an aircraft', a B-29, landed. The crew got off and he convinced them to let him fly it. What he didn't know was one of the crew was a guy named Paul Tibbets, who was the commander of the Manhattan Project. Tibbets actually took a liking to him, saying this young guy could fly. Tibbets ask him to join them, but said he couldn't say what they were doing or where they were going. He was assigned to the 509th Composite Group in Utah."

"They went to the Utah Salt Flats where they dropped 10,000-pound concrete blocks (weight of atomic bomb) while scientists rode on the plane. He didn't know why and thought they were designing a plane to hold the weight."

"One day a security officer grabbed him and took him for a ride. They drove about 10 miles out into the desert where the security officer picked up a handful of sand and said, 'This is what we are going to do to a city in Japan, one bomb', and threw the sand into the air. My father said that was impossible; there wasn't one bomb that exists."

"He told him from this point on he couldn't talk about it. Everyone involved with the flight knew, but know one else. McArthur, Commander in the Pacific didn't know what was going on at time. Truman didn't know until after he became president. That's how secret it was."

"It cost two billion dollars for a bomb in 1945. They did their training, tested the bomb in New Mexico and the bomb worked, so they went to Tinian, a small island in the South Pacific. On August 6, 1945, Col. Tibbets had his plane, 'Enola Gay', and my father flew his right wing in 'The Great Artiste'. My father had all of the instruments, like weather instruments, to get things like the barometric pressure, and things like that."

"They left out of Tinian at two in the morning, and flew for five hours to Hiroshima. They didn't know if the bomb would work, and didn't know what the result would be when dropped. They thought the Japanese would surrender, but it didn't happen. Japanese leaders said they were not going to quit."

"The next day, August 7, Col. Tibbets spoke to my father and told him he would fly the next mission in two days and the main target would be a city called Kokura. My father told his friend Frederick Bock that they would put the bomb in Bock's plane, named 'Bockscar', and Bock would fly 'The Great Artiste' with the instruments. August 9th rolled around and they were to use the same tactics, three B-29's in formation."

"That morning they were going to take off from Tinian, and after cranking up the engines, they realize they had 600 pounds of fuel they couldn't use. The entire package (bomb) weighed 77 tons and they had a short runway. They decided to press on. They took off and flew for five hours. At the rendezvous point, one pilot didn't show because he didn't pay attention at the brief and flew to 39,000 feet instead of 30,000. The two aircraft flew around in a circle for 45 minutes and finally they said, 'Let's press.'"

"There was radio silence, and the other guy, not knowing where they are, broke radio silence, called Tinian, and asked, 'Did Sweeney abort?' but due to communications problems, it came across as 'Sweeney abort.' My father had the only nuclear weapon in the world, nobody knows where he is, he's short on fuel, and in Tinian, they called off all escort ships because they think he's aborted the mission."

"Unlike the first bomb, the bomb 'Fat Man' was plutonium and had to be armed before take-off. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was uranium, and they put the fuses on during the flight. My dad had a loaded bomb, low on fuel, one guy already missing, and wasn't having a good day."

"They get to Kokura and because the Americans had bombed a nearby munitions plant, all the smoke from the fires covered the city. He was suppose to make one pass over the city, but couldn't see the target because of the smoke so he made a second pass. Of course the Japanese spotted them and sent up ZEROS, and along with anti-aircraft artillery firing at them, there were bullets going off all around them. He went to 31,000 feet for the second pass, and made a third pass at 32,000, and was still getting shot at and couldn't see the target. He decided to heck with this and went on to the secondary target, Nagasaki."

"After the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, he had the problem of getting back to Tinian. Low on fuel, he decided to land on Okinawa. If they would have had to fly another mile and they would have crashed in the ocean. On approach, he tried to call tower for emergency landing, but they couldn't hear them. He had crewmen take every flaregun they had and fire out the windows. The tower cleared the airstrip. As they landed, the last two engines died with no fuel left, and they rolled to end of runway. He went to the tower and told them he had to get a message to Tinian. He then went into the operations building and asked to make secure comms call, and told them don't ask what we are doing. He then made the call."

"A gentleman by the name of Jimmy Doolittle, base commander, asked him to report after making radio communication. He went to Doolittle's office and by then Doolittle had figured out who he was and what he was about. He just stood there in front of Doolittle's desk for five minutes while Doolittle just looked at him. He was a general and my father was a major. My father wondered what Doolittle was thinking. "

"Years later, he figured it out. Here was the guy who led the first raid on Japan and got the Medal of Honor and here was the guy from the last raid on Japan. He never caught the irony until later on."

"They refueled the plane, went back to Tinian, and had a big party. The Japanese surrendered and sixteen years later had me!"

"My father played a big role in getting a separate Air Force and testified to Congress almost daily. In 1947, a separate Air Force was created. He stayed in the military, was the youngest general in Air Force history, at 37 receiving his first star."

"When he commissioned me a second Lieutenant he said, 'You know I was a 2nd Lt. once, for a weekend.'"

"He stayed in for a while, went back to Boston, was commander of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. He taught Charles Lindbergh to fly a B-29. He got back after WW II and was in California at a cocktail party with Mickey Rooney (actor) and Rooney said, 'You Boston guys are everywhere.' My father asked what he meant and found out another gentleman named Jack Kennedy was at the party."

"Kennedy ask my father what his plans for the future were, and my father told him, 'I love flying and will stay with it in the future. What about you?' Kennedy replied, 'my father wants me to get into politics, but I don't want to.' Fifteen years later Kennedy was president and my father was a general working at Otis ANG base in Cape Cod. Air Force One landed there since Kennedy live on Cape Cod. My father went out to greet him and Kennedy said, 'You finally made it kid.'"

"My father had many great times in his life, he was larger than life, and I'm so proud of him."