Duane Beard was a sonar man in the U.S. Navy, posted to the island of Tinian in the Pacific. From that island, one August day, he mailed a letter to his sweetheart Joyce in St. Louis, MI. Of course it took Joyce a while to receive that letter. By the time it arrived in Gratiot County, the whole world knew that from Tinian on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay had taken off bearing the world’s first atomic bomb to be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. While Duane did not work with the Enola Gay that day, this letter still has a remarkably historic date and place! Joyce, who married Duane when he returned to the States, has loaned the Gratiot County Museum that letter, some photos of his service, his naval uniform, and a collection of helmets that he accumulated in the years after the war ended. These items will be on display as part of this spring’s WWII exhibit.