Miss Taylor Young
Chapter 1
Heading to the Dock of Tinian
The USS Indianapolis
July 26, 1945
The Pacific Ocean
13:30 hours (1:30pm)
“Yuck!” Tom gulped down the vomit, trying to prevent himself from losing the remainder of the eggs he had for breakfast. He had become very seasick. His voice had sounded raspy when he muttered, groaned, and talked, because it ached as he had been puking all morning. The bright yellow liquid stank terribly, urging Tom to puke even more.
When he had started feeling nauseous at the beginning of the trip, it was just a headache. Then the pains spread to his stomach, his throat, and his chest. He luckily had found a bathroom stall, and just in time, he let his stomach go into the filthy toilet, which was about to become even filthier.
The acid stung his throat like a bee, a bee that was small enough to fit inside the back of his throat, and stab it with its stinger hard enough to make it sore.
And he wasn’t the only one who was this seasick. A few others were too. He didn’t understand how hardly anybody else was really sick like he was. Earlier on, he heard another man spilling his guts into another.
After there was nothing left in his stomach, and he was dry heaving, he stood up, flushed the toilet so the reek of it didn’t make others puke hysterically, and left the bathroom.
Tom headed to the deck, as he wanted to see the Hiroshima Bomb’s parts be unloaded. The waves crashed against The Indy. The chattering men walked and bumped into him. The smell of salt water made him very hungry, but didn’t want to eat any more food, so he wouldn’t have to puke even more.
About fifteen minutes later, Tom saw it off in the distance: the island of Tinian. It was only a small, black line far off in the distance, but it was the island where the “uranium and such” (Captain McVay told him so before leaving San Francisco) would be unloaded, and flown into the air so it could be dropped upon Hiroshima.
Kapowie!
Tom could only imagine such an incredible sight. Miles of nothing but flat Earth, illness to many, and the best part about it: Japan (America’s current nemesis) would likely surrender.
World War II had ended in Europe not two months before, with Germany’s surrender. Hitler put a pistol in his mouth in a Nazi bunker under Berlin, and with nobody to command Germany, all of the Nazi’s surrendered. Thousands of them went to prison, or worse. Europe put on a huge celebration, even though there was not much to celebrate with; almost all of Europe was blown up, in ruins, burned to the ground, or unsafe to live in.
He had no idea where his family was now. He just knew they were safe and sound, far away from the action.
Tom’s hometown was in Moab, Utah. But as soon as Japan destroyed Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, Tom enlisted in the US Navy. It was one of those things where he wanted to, but also didn’t at the same time. And the worst part (in his opinion) was not the fear of going to war, but the fear of basic training. It was heck.
All of the other men there called him names like ‘Runt.’ The basic workouts made him go into agony. But he managed, and after completing basic training, his captain sent him to San Francisco, California, where his first assignment was to safely deliver the Hiroshima ‘Little Boy’ bomb. And after a week and three days, he could see that the island of Tinian was growing a few millimeters closer every minute. And he knew what that meant: Game over for Japan and its brutal army.