[Dan in Pasadena]

My father was an aircraft mechanic on Tinian Island. After all these years, many people still think the atomic bombs took off from Saipan, but they did not. They took off from Tinian and my father was there. He claimed they (of course) didn't understand what was happening because they were all confined to quarters the day before the mission. They were happy to get the time off work and only knew something "big" was happening.

Afterward and until he was discharged in December of that year and got back stateside he didn't yet understand that the world had changed because of the bombs.