He attended both the University of Florida at Gainesville and the University of Cincinnati pursuing a degree in medicine. Later, the family moved back to the Midwest where Tibbets graduated high school from the Western Military Academy. As part of an advertising stunt, Tibbets tossed Baby Ruth candy bars with tiny paper parachutes to the crowd. Tibbets was flying with barnstormer Doug Davis in a biplane. Tibbets had his first airplane ride when he was 12 at a carnival at the Hialeah horse track outside of Miami. As a boy, he was very interested in flying. In 1923, his family moved to Hialeah, Florida, to escape from harsh midwestern winters. was born in Quincy, Illinois, on February 23, 1915, the son of Paul Warfield Tibbets Sr. He stated that his actions had brought an end to the bloodshed of World War II and ultimately saved lives by stopping the carnage. In his later years, he would draw the ire and criticism of nuclear activists something he would make no apologies for. Paul Tibbets was a retired Air Force brigadier general who flew the Enola Gay (named after his mother) when it dropped Little Boy, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
