 The transmitter key sat on the table looking almost brand new, and as though it could be a part of a child’s decoder kit; The innocent appearance belies its profound role in world history. Tom Dolan, a Fort Bragg, CA resident, used that transmitter key on Aug. 6, 1945 to receive the message that the dropping of the atomic bomb, also known as “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima, Japan went smoothly and then transmitted it to an operator in Hawaii who relayed it to President Truman.
The first message he received was unclear said Dolan. It was, “Results good.” So, Dolan said they relayed another message “Results excellent.” The message was clear, the mission went off successfully; they dropped the bomb at 8:15 a.m. and by 8:16 a.m. 68,000 Japanese were dead. Of those 10,000 were completely incinerated, leaving no trace of their existence.
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Tom Dolan used this transmitter key on Aug.6, 1945 to receive the message that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan went smoothly and then transmitted it to an operator in Hawaii who relayed it to President Truman
Amy Katz photo |
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At the bottom of the transmitter key was a strip with the name Tom R. Dolan Radioman 3rd Class, printed on it. The key was then plugged into the transmitter receiver. “A lot of us had our own. I still have the original case. But boy is it beat up. We called it a ‘bug.’ I don’t know where it got the expression ‘the bug,’ but on there you’ll see a picture of a bug. It’s made by Vibroplex. I would never sell it though. It’s a part of me,” Dolan said.
When asked to revisit the day of transmittal, Dolan began, “I don’t know whether I received the message because I could copy fast or whether I just happened to get that position in rotation - that night I worked from 12 a.m. to 9 a.m. That was our normal shift. And I was told take this air-to-shore circuit. No ships on the circuit, we would just be communicating with aircraft.”
He continued, “All they told me was they expected some important information. What I got was, this plane took off from Tinian Island, and that was unusual, so I knew something was up... I was on Guam which was the headquarters island (where all the generals and admirals were stationed). All these islands, Guam, Tinian and Saipan, are part of the Mariana Islands. We copied all the information to and from the states or Pearl Harbor and we relayed all information. It took off about 2:15 a.m.. we knew it was probably heading for Japan on a mission but we didn’t know what. I heard no more.”
But the story goes, Dolan said, “They got there [Hiroshima] about 8:15 a.m. and made a circle over the city and as they did that they dropped the bomb. They nicknamed it ‘Little Boy’ And the airplane was the Enola Gay which was
named after the mother of the captain of the plane. Then, at full power, what ever a B-29 will take, they took off and they were only a mile away when it went off one minute. later It went off at 1,900 feet above the city.
That’s done on purpose; had it hit the ground it would explode out but dropping it at 1,900 feet it would destroy everything, having a greater impact. It was a 9,700 pound uranium bomb which had the devastating force, believe it or not, of 20,000 pounds of TNT. Imagine how powerful that was. In those days no one ever heard of an atom bomb. It destroyed five square miles in Hiroshima.”
Summing it up, Dolan explained, “The sequence went like this: after they dropped ‘Little Boy,’ I received the message from the plane and was then instructed to relay the message to Hawaii, and Pearl Harbor relayed it to President Truman. If I had missed the message, I don’t know whether it would have gotten transmitted or not. Truman said it was the toughest thing that he ever had to do.”
When they decoded the message and figured out what it meant, Dolan recalls, “Someone said we dropped the atomic bomb, and we all said, what’s atomic bomb?” Knowing the controversy surrounding the dropping of the bomb responded, “A lot of people say what a terrible thing we did; And it is a terrible thing; But they estimated a million and a half American casualties if we invaded Japan; And they figured the Japanese casualties would be over 2 million; I was told in training that I’d be in the 13th wave if we invaded Japan and then they told us the first 50 waves would have 90 percent casualties, in other words 90 percent of us were going to die. So when I hear about the atom bomb, I figure it saved my life for one, plus another million and a half others. So in the long
run it eliminated casualties.”
Talking later to the radioman on the Enola Gay by code when he returned to Tinian Island, Dolan said that someone had asked the radioman (and later in life they asked him too), “Do you have any regrets?” and he said none whatsoever.
“He did not know what he was doing to begin with, only a couple of them knew, but he said even if he had known he would have volunteered for the mission,” Dolan said. There were approximately 12 men aboard the Enola Gay, according to Dolan. A big bomber had a pilot and copilot, navigator, a tail gunner radio operator and more. They had one extra person aboard. Dolan said, who was an atomic expert involved in the creating the bomb. He was probably the one who detonated it, Dolan said.
As an aside, Dolan mentioned an interesting coincidence between he and the radio operator that sent the message: both the radio operator and Dolan were the same age when they enlisted, 17 years old, and they were 20 when he sent the message and Dolan received it. He died this year in February, according to Dolan.
“I spoke with his wife. She said always knew there was somebody he communicated with but never knew who it was. I knew he lived in Riverside, but I had never contacted him after the service. I just talked to his wife a few days ago because on Aug. 6 of each year the people on the Enola Gay meet for a reunion. This year there are only four or five left. You figure the average age of World War II veterans today is around 87. He and I were younger because we were the 17-year-old baby crop. The others were 25, the old people,” Dolan chuckled.
 World War II veterans are dying at a rate 1,500 a day, according to Dolan. The World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. will finally be completed this May, said Dolan. Dolan commented on the importance of the role of radioman during the war.
“Being a radio operator, at least us radio operators like to think, was the most important part of it all. When ships, planes or those on land needed to communicate, who did it - the radiomen. All messages went through and by the radio operator. I used to laugh when they’d say the captain’s the last one to leave the ship. We used to say like hell he was, we were the ones standing back sending the SOS message through the transmitter.”
A twist of fate led him to his position in the military. Dolan graduated from high school in January 1943 and enlisted in the Navy in February the same year. “I joined the Navy because I wanted to go to sea, but the military played a trick on me,” Dolan said. They sent him to radio school at Northwestern University. Then they sent him to Camp Pendelton, a Marine base, took away his clothing and issued him ones saying USMC.
“They said, ‘You are still in the Navy but from now on you are one of the Third Marines,” Dolan said. So he trained with the marines, went to Hawaii with them, went by ship with them, and were three days out when the announcement was made, “Now hear this, in two days we’ll be invading the Marshall Islands. All radio operators will be first wave (first ones out) D-Day.” From the Marshall Islands Dolan went to Guam, where he played a pivotal role in the nation’s history. “That was Aug. 6, and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.”
Dolan was discharged from the military, ironically on Dec. 7,1945, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. “Then I came back home, went to work for the phone company and met this little 18 year old, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s what I was fighting for!”
A year later they got married and Dolan proudly reported that he and Delores just celebrated their 55th anniversary this year. Currently, he’s a volunteer light-keeper at Point Cabrillo. Dolan has three sons. “They think dear old dad is a war hero or something,” he laughs humbly.
Towards (the end of the interview Dolan revealed that he didn’t imagine any of his sons doing what he had to do. “I would hate to think that they had to do that,” he said.
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