10-9  Vito Di Rienzo

Q. After these 2 years, Where did you go next? A. In 1945, I was told I was going overseas to the Marianas Island in Japan. Q. Where you stationed in Japan? A. No my home base was on Tinian Island. Q. If any, What kind of contact did you have with your family? A. We wrote letters. These letters were censored though when we received them, they were all cut up and looked like Swiss cheese. Everything needed to be signed "Truck driver". It was like a pass word. Q. What kind of work did you do on Tinian? A. I was a fabricator I put something together. They told me to put something together and that was my job. And I cut hair. Q. What were you putting together? Did you have any idea of what you were doing? A. I later found out that I put together a piece of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Q. Were they strict about this? A. Yes. This was top secret. We didn't even know what we were assembling. They told us what to do and we obeyed. We weren't allowed to ask questions. They told us not to talk and not to say a word. There were six guys all together that were told to pack their bags. They were sent to Alaska and weren't allowed to come home until the war was over. Three mouth's after this interview my father passed away on 29 July,1999. I was and still am proud of my father.