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294 Thursday 16 Aug. 7:30 am Dearly Beloved - So it is all-over but the shouting, and not of that here. I think you would find it hard to visualize - if you've been listening to the radio as much as I suspect you have - what a quiet time we had of it on Tinian. There was no gunfire (probably because of the examples of Okinawa, where several men were killed in a premature celebration) and I heard no sirens or foghorns, though the ship's in the harbor are said to have blasted away on the latter. Last night when the two Jameses and I returned from their states - Saipan ship after dinner aboard (best meal I've had in ten months) and a visit with their friend the young radioman, we saw a few roman candles and rockets men had been [?] up, heard one string of firecrackers. Back in our own officers’ area several men were in the process of getting singing-drunk and made a fair amount of noise, but overall an air of quiet prevailed and the three of us, sitting in the screened-in porch which [pg 2] faces toward one of the B29 fields a mile or so away, missed the thrilling sight of the night before, dozens of B29s returning from their last mission and looking (with their powerful twin headlights) like “taxis of the sky,” as somebody put it - an apt term if you think of taxis crowding into the Pennsylvania Station. Yesterday afternoon Tel and I, having called the OWI in Saipan and been told that they would pick up and relay the Emperor's speech on our station, were disappointed (and disappointed our auditorium audience of civilians) when nothing came through. Last night Tel went back and succeeded in getting a Tokyo station which gave a long recapitulation of the events of the past few days. Tel said that many of the adults were in tears - just crushed, and finding it hard to believe yet having had it confirmed. Many of us find it hard to believe, though in a different way. It just doesn't seem real yet. It hasn't sunk in. As Jim Boyle [REST OF PAGES TORN]
