Thus it came about, in the fateful August l945, that the ultimate blow, the atomic bombs against Japan were delivered from Tinian, an island captured a year earlier by the Second Marine Division, the Division that had been first to man America's outposts in World War II; first to land on the Solomon Islands and capture Guadalcanal; first to storm the bastion of the Central Pacific,Tarawa; the Division that cut the heart out of Saipan; swept over Ushi airdrome of Tinian: occupied Aguni and Iheya and delivered the knockout blow to Okinawa, Japan's last remaining bastion.

The long journey across the cold waters of the Atlantic and the hot jungles of the Pacific began in l941, was over at last on 23 September l945. The Second Marine Division landed at Nagasaki on the southernmost island of Kyushu, not as invaders, but as conquerors, to begin the occupation of Japan.