THERE ARE NO telephones on Tinian. The grapevine method is most sufficient, as I was soon to discover.

"The barge will be in this morning about nine," announced Don Powers at the dairy.

Asked how he found out, Don replied, "We have a radio hookup with our Guam office and they told us."

I drove down Broadway to the village and from its dock at the harbor I could see the top of the barge peering from behind the breakwater. In a few moments the barge and its accompanying tug came into full view as it made the turn into Tinian's man-made harbor.

Almost simultaneously, 15 to 20 small pickup trucks appeared--all loaded with watermelons. The grapevine worked. Tinian is famous for its large and exceptionally sweet watermelons, the chief cash crop for its many small farmers.

After the barge was docked, Capt. Eric Harrison, another New Zealander, jumped off its deck.

"Had a little blow these past few days," he remarked, referring to a small typhoon which had prevented the barge from leaving Guam on schedule.

"The bloody barge with a full line out can ride most any sea. I'd bloody well rawtha be at sea in a typhoon than in some bloody harbor and get smashed up against a bloody dock," he expounded.

"The sea ain't dangerous if you nauw what yur doin'. I been runnin' ships all my life since I was a kid in Auckland. What almost got me busted up was those bloody fighters down in New Hebrides in the war. Had three of the bloody things shot out from under me, I did, " recounted the former Royal New Zealand Air Force fighter pilot.

I winked at his fellow countryman, Don Powers, therewith the Jones' dairy shipment, knowing the precious cargo of fresh milk and watermelons would be in good hands on the ten-hour ocean journey to Guam.

Hiroshima loading pit in 1949

TINIAN'S HARBOR IS not large, lying behind a breakwater which has a steel superstructure on top of a strip of land encircling several concrete docks. Showing wear from the countless storms which have battered it for over 30 years, like so many other things about this island, the harbor has its own story to tell.

In July 1945, the newly commissioned heavy cruiser, "Indianapolis" entered here. Her mission was highly secretive and critically important to the war against Japan. Her cargo--too precious to trust to an airplane which could be lost at sea on the long flight from the U.S.--included the fissionable materials for the atom bombs. Without them the

bombs were impotent. The other components awaited the arrival of the "Indianapolis" on Tinian. Special B-29's sat on North Field, their mission known only to a handful at the busy airfield. Following delivery of the cargo to scientists and officials, the cruiser departed Tinian harbor for Leyte in the Philippines and U.S. Naval forces there.

Halfway between Tinian and the Philippines a submerged Japanese submarine was enroute to her homeland. Sighting the "Indianapolis", the submarine crew took aim, fired torpedoes and sank the ship.

Thousands of men floundered in the calm water of the Pacific. No time had been allowed to send out an S.O.S. Finally, four days later, a patrol plane sighted the ship's survivors. Before it was over, around 800 perished in one of the greatest sea disasters of the war.

Tinian was to play another tragic role a few days later--of even greater magnitude--when she was to witness the launch of the cargo from the sunken "Indianapolis"; destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.