Airman's artifacts come to N.C.

RALEIGH -- Col. Thomas W. Ferebee had a distinguished military career that lasted from World War II to Vietnam, but it was a single day that ensured him a place in history. On Aug. 6, 1945, he pulled a lever aboard the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The attack -- so horrific and so significant in ending the war -- did not define the North Carolina native's life. But it did add historical significance to the souvenirs of his military service that he so scrupulously saved. Now those artifacts have been returned to his home state.

The N.C. Museum of History announced Wednesday that it has acquired Ferebee's military collection, including notes written on that day, maps, his dress uniform, desk nameplate, reunion pins and mugs, and a substantial amount of paperwork documenting his 30-year career in the Air Force.

"This piece of military history with national and international significance is certainly a major collection, one of the most important I collected on my watch," said Elizabeth Buford, who as museum director pursued the artifacts for two years.

The acquisition carried a bittersweet tinge for Buford, who was forced to retire this month after five years leading the museum and 25 more with the state Department of Cultural Resources.

Buford said Wednesday that she became interested in the artifacts when George E. Hicks, who was then head of the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pa., called to ask to borrow some flags for an exhibition. Hicks mentioned that he met Ferebee, who had retired to Florida and died in 2000, while working on a 1995 documentary about the crew of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that carried the weapon to Hiroshima.

Hicks told Buford that Ferebee grew up in the Davie County town of Mocksville in the Piedmont and felt strongly about his North Carolina roots. He also mentioned that Ferebee had saved all his military paperwork and other items.

Hicks persuaded the colonel's widow, Mary Ann Ferebee, to donate them to North Carolina. Her husband is buried in Mocksville.

"George made a real pitch about what we were doing at the Museum of History, so it would belong not only to the nation forever but to the people of North Carolina forever," Buford said. "It's a piece of history that people will be talking about for years to come as they look back on the 20th century."

With his impulse to collect, Ferebee created a view of recent military history from the vantage point of an accomplished but otherwise ordinary Air Force officer. That is just the kind of documentation the North Carolina museum likes to get its hands on, said Tom Belton, curator of military history, because such artifacts are often more accurate reflections of everyday life.

"If people were to come to the museum 50 years from now to see an exhibit on highways, a hard hat worn by a guy who poured concrete is more representative than the guy who owns the concrete company," Belton said.

Belton is organizing an exhibition that chronicles wars that North Carolinians have fought; some of the Ferebee collection will debut at the May 8 opening. More of the items will be displayed later, he said.

The atomic bomb that the Enola Gay dropped that day killed at least 80,000 Japanese and destroyed two-thirds of the city's buildings. Ferebee had no idea he had launched the first nuclear attack until later, he told The Orlando Sentinel in 1985.

Mary Ann Ferebee said after her husband's death that he thought he had carried out a duty that helped end the war.