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The pilot of the US bomber Enola Gay, which in 1945 dropped the first nuclear bomb on Japan died this week aged 92. He had said he wanted his ashes to be scattered over the English Channel.

Paul Tibbets requested no funeral or headstone because he feared they would attract protesters and in 2005, he said he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he had enjoyed flying during the war.

Mr Tibbets was in command of the B-29 aircraft, which dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb over Hiroshima as the US tried to end the second world war without a ground invasion of Japan.

Up to 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the explosion.

Mr Tibbets, whose plane was named after his mother, had enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1937, and finally left the US air force as a brigadier general in 1966.