The ship I served on during the War had been doing carrier plane guarding for a battle group in the Pacific. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan on August 6th, 1945, my ship was immediately ordered back to Pearl Harbor.

Arriving there on August 11th, we were treated to the fantastic, once in a lifetime, spectacle of one of the most impressionable fire power demonstrations one could imagine.

Every ship in the harbor lit the night sky with every kind of star shell, tracers, H/E and just plain small arms fire. This went on for hours. This was a scene I shall live with forever and will never forget.

I was sitting in the old Pompano High School auditorium where we listened to President Roosevelt's speech declaring war on Japan in 1941, and here I was in 1945 in the very place it started and ended.

I doesn't get any better than this.

Bud Garner