On this date, the United States dropped a 20-kiloton atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people. Priscilla is clearly discomposed by initial reports of the bomb's power, but finds solace in her religious beliefs and patriotic feelings. (Alumni Papers, Priscilla M. Holloway Papers, 1919-1946).

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789

August 6, 1945

Cheri,

After a silence of ten days your second # 323 written July 28th came to me.  The first # 323 came on July 27th (you wrote it on the 20th).  We seem to have had the same difficulty, each of us, for you tell me in the letter received today that at its writing you hadn't had a letter from me for ten days--nothing after the first letter I wrote you from Hartland.

It always makes me feel badly when your mail doesn't go through--I suppose it is the feeling of helplessness that gets me.  If there were something more I could do besides writing and sending them air mail I could consume my energies in that way.  But inasmuch as the army insists on taking care of the mail itself there is nothing for me to do but get mad when yours doesn't go through--and then pray to St. Andrew Bobola for help.  Which I will do pronto.  I have for the past several nights been asking him to hurry up a letter to me--and presto!  today I got one.  Maybe I can turn the trick for you too.

I seem to be a very expensive proposition for you this month--for you tell me your pay was minus $66 to cover the allottment portion for June, July and August 1942.   The army finance office seems to have a mind like an elephant.  I hadn't even know they neglected to deduct the allottment back then.  But old Uncle Sam always manages to come in on the collecting end, doesn't he?  It is too bad they took it all at once--that must have been a mighty heavy blow for you.  As I figure it you got less than $30 with that extra deduction.  I still think they should have given you a little advance notice, or let you pay it back in installments or something.  But accountants are notoriously heartless--even in the army, aren't they?

It seems almost more than coincidence that you should discuss in your latest letter President Truman's notice to Japan to surrender or face total destruction.   For it came to me on the same day in which official announcement was made of the atomic bomb which was loosed on the Japanese army base at Hiroshima.  The first two pages of tonight's paper carry no other news but the different releases of the years of experiment, the secrecy, the precautions that went into the planning and execution of the bomb that fell on Japan.  Except for the report of the clouds of dust that rose from Hiroshima no knowledge is had yet of what the bomb did.  But on the night radio news they described to us the experimental bomb that was set off in New Mexico last month as a test.  They said the bomb was hoisted up to the top of a steel tower and when the bomb had exploded the tower had simply disappeared with no trace.  All that showed where it had stood was a vast crater in the earth.

Reading about this harnessing of some of the "unknown" powers of the world made my blood run cold.  In the hands of unscrupulous knaves like the late Nazi herrenvolk--the civilization we know today could be wholly destroyed.  Secretary Stimson said that if the secret can be kept by Britain and the United States (who united in the work to produce this frightening force) we can force peace on the world--willing or not.  Frankly I cannot now imagine either Britain or the United States using it for ill.  With all our many faults of selfishness and greed, I think we stand out in the world as the most humane of any people.

Perhaps one is being a little thatrical in saying a man or group of men could destroy the world--as one army officer is reported to have said in speaking of the atomic bomb.  God created the world and only God

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I am thinking back on what I have read of the promises of Our Lady of Fatima.  I think I sent you some stories about the appearance of Our Lady at Fatima in Portugal after the last war.  And she promised at that time that unless the world returned to God another and more horrible war would be loosed upon the earth.  And we certainly are in the throes of a horrible war, are we not?  But she also promised that if she were heeded Russia would be converted and a long era of peace would descend on the world.  It remains now to be seen whether we are to have peace or further punishment.  It is useless, and perhaps sinful, to speculate.  We have to wait and find out.

But it is true, isn't it, that the Church flourishes most under difficulties and declines under too much prosperity.  You have witnesses to that in the Phillipines [sic]--the Church had no opposition and decayed; you have the same example in France and Spain and Mexico.  Maybe the world needs a few lessons to make it mend its spiritual fences, eh?  It takes adversity to purify the soul.

I can't help but wonder what the reaction to this atomic bomb will be in your neck of the woods--certainly its use cannot help but shorten the war.  Not that I think it will be used anywhere but in Japan itself--I doubt if our commands would consider destroying Chinese by a lavish use of such a destructive force.  But used solely against Japan it can shorten the war by making it necessary to fight Japanese land forces only in China and Manchuria--where our superior armor will be a big force.

I begin to sound suspiciously like an armchair general so I will stop pronto!  I have no use for armchair generals, you see.

Wisconsin lost its No. 1 hero today when Major Richard I. Bong was killed testing a Lockheed jet propelled plane.  The Japs couldn't get him but imperfection did.   One always hates to see a man killed--especially one who came throught so much fighting unscathed.  It must have been an awful blow to his family and his bride of less than six months.  It seems rather ironic that he was kept out of combat areas so that he would not be killed--and then to have him lose his life on home soil.  You can't keep the angel of death at bay forever, can you?  Or just by wishing it.   Proving again that senseless fear is a weakness.  I keep hammering that item into my own brain to cure myself of worrying about silly trifles.  And I think I'm succeeding, what's more to the point.

My, my.  What a solemn owl I am tonight.  Too much reading about atom smashing I guess.  And considering I know absolutely nothing about science and less about physics--I ought not to try speculating about either!

Good night honey.  I love you and I'll pray hard to our St. Andrew to get the mail through to you.  I can see you, like me, are not quite so cheerful when there is a long wait between letters.  I'll get St. A on the job right away!

Priscilla