Who dropped the Atomic Bomb 'Little Boy' in Hiroshima? US pilot who detonated the Oppenheimer-designed bomb instantly killing 80,000 people had 'no regrets' over decision

It's been almost 80 years since an unprecedented atomic bomb wreaked havoc in Japan, leaving behind a devastation so severe, it will never be forgotten.

American pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr, then aged 30, changed the course of history when he dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, during World War ll, instantly killing 78,000 people.

Nicknamed 'Little Boy' and plunged from the USAAF B-29 bomber, Enola Gay; August 6, 1945 marks the deadly day the device would ravish entire towns in its wake. 

The bomb's aftermath would take the death toll to 140,000 as survivors went on to die from complications from severe burns and radiation sickness.

An experienced brigadier general in the United States Air Force, Paul headed a crew of 12 men who flew the four-engine heavy bomber - named Enola Gay after his mother - that unleashed a first-of-its-kind warfare on thousands of men, women and children.

American pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr (pictured), then aged 30, dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, during World War ll, instantly killing 78,000 people

It's been almost 80 years since the unprecedented atomic bomb wreaked havoc in Japan, leaving behind a devastation so severe, it will never be forgotten (pictured: The Boeing B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' landing on the Marianas Island after the atomic bombing mission on Hiroshima, Japan)

Paul flew the four-engine heavy bomber and named it Enola Gay after his mother (The captain is pictured waving from the Enola Gay's cockpit before taking off for the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 1945)

The Illinois-born aircraft captain passed away in 2007, aged 92, but not before revealing his chilling thoughts on the calamitous mission.

In 1975, he told the Columbus Dispatch that he had no regrets over his decision and slept 'clearly every night'.

He said: 'You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. You use anything at your disposal'.

At some point in the interview, he appeared to somewhat reflect on his actions adding: 'I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did'.

The Little Boy weighed approximately 4,400 kg and its complex design utilised a gun method to explosively force a nuclear chain reaction.

According to Los Alamos National lab, the destructive device was named after its shape, an unassuming 'gun gadget' formation.

The path to the development of the infamous atom bomb began in 1904, when Frederick Soddy, a physicist at Cambridge University, theorised that if the energy within an atom could be released it would be a weapon by which 'we could destroy the earth'.

Many years later Robert J Oppenheimer - the son of a German Jewish businessman and his wife Ella, a painter - would famously work on the device.

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr was an experienced brigadier general in the United States Air Force

Here Paul poses in 1946 and on another occasion in front of the Enola Gay, responsible for wreaking havoc on Hiroshima during World War ll

In 1975, he told the Columbus Dispatch that he had no regrets over his decision to drop the atomic bomb and slept 'clearly every night' (pictured in New Mexico in 1946)

The Illinois-born aircraft captain passed away in 2007, aged 92 (Paul is pictured holding a model of the Enola Gay during an appearance at the Flying Tigers Warbird Restoration Museum in Kissimmee before his death)

Oppenheimer's intellect was second to none. Amid the dizzying breakthroughs in quantum physics that were coming thick and fast in the 1920s, Oppenheimer shone by publishing 16 papers in three years.

His words following the first ever atomic bomb explosion in New Mexico 1965 were quoted as: 'I am become death, destroyer of worlds,'

Less than a month later, the pioneering, devastating technology was used on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, acts which ended the Second World War but took as many as 170,000 lives in the process.

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born on February 23, 1915, in Quincy, Illinois, and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.

He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.

He became a brigadier general before leaving the military in 1966. Later he became president of Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus-based international air-taxi service.

Tibbets was cremated and his ashes scattered in the English Channel, which he loved to fly over during the war.