Life on Tinian

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“When we weren't flying, well, we'd still go up in the air. Actually, in between missions, we would take off and cruise around the islands, mostly for bombardier training. Between Tinian and Guam is an island called Rota, where we'd head for our bombardier to drop a live bomb (not a practice one) to sharpen his skills. Of course, I had to report our position to the ground station constantly because we were a long way from Japan. If they picked up any of my transmissions, they wouldn't understand them anyway. Being out in the Pacific, I realized that between Tinian and Japan, there's no friendly territory, just a lot of water. The Pacific Ocean is a vast stretch. As much as possible, I'd go swimming. Tinian itself is all coral, with only about six inches of topsoil. The hills there vary in height, some not too high and others reaching about 150 feet, I'd say. Where we were stationed, in our quarters, there was a little cove. Someone had placed a long rope anchored all the way down to the shoreline. I really wanted to swim, so before doing that, I'd get on one side of the cliff, look over the edge, and eyeball the shoreline. And what did I see? Sharks. So, I'd grab chunks of coral and throw them at the sharks, scaring them off. Then, I'd go to the rope, slide right down, and swim out. We didn't have any bathing suits, so we swam nude. Swimming out in the coral, I'd open my eyes in the salt water (which is a bad idea, but I did it anyway), and there were loads of fish – brilliant ones, red ones, and everything else. I'd spend quite a bit of time there. The beach itself was nothing more than a 20-foot-long stretch of dust from volcanic ash or whatever. To get back up, I had to climb hand-over-hand on the rope. I could do it back then, but there's no way I could do that today.”