In 1945 the late Harvey Ewing was a 21-year-old tail gunner in a torpedo bomber in the South Pacific.

Martha’s Vineyard endured a precarious existence in those heady days of the young republic. As the founding fathers debated the philosophical underpinnings of liberal democracy in Philadelphia, entire British and Hessian fleets skulked just over our horizon (as reported by contemporary whalers). The vulnerable and largely defenseless Island was caught in limbo and few natives ventured to offend the Crown. As the war drew on, though, and these specters increasingly emerged in Vineyard harbors to exact their punishing toll, Islanders became patriots.

These are the voices of an Island in a nation at war:

"I don't think we had much choice." - Charles Felder, manager of the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club.

"I honestly don't know of anyone who is supportive or ready for this." - Annelies Spykman, employee at Mocha Motts in Oak Bluffs.

"They should just go in there and take care of business. They let [Saddam Hussein] go the first time, and I think that was a mistake." - Craig Tankard of Oak Bluffs, at the Vineyard Haven A&P.

For the sheep grazing in pastures above Vineyard Sound, the patches of weathered canvas beating toward Holmes Hole were barely worth a glance away from meals of September grass. Farmers, townspeople and public officials, however, greeted the approach of some four dozen English-flagged vessels with a bit more alarm.

The first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan Sunday, but the Vineyard knew nothing of It until yesterday, and then only through the radio announcements. In the night there was wind and rain, and this morning a heavy fog wrapped the Island, not as impenetrable, however, as that which still shrouds the scene of destruction in Japan.
The events have no association except in our own minds, but this is how Islanders will recall the time when the release of atomic energy was made known to the world.

The great war has come quite near to Edgartown people this week in the sinking on Saturday last, Aug. 10^th, by a German Submarine, of the fine fishing schooner Progress of this port, Capt. Robert Jackson, one of the most dauntless and successful fishing masters sailing from this place.