My Dad enlisted in the Marines rather late as he started working at Keyport in 1940 as an apprentice machinist making tools after high school in Marysville. When my Uncle Chuck was killed on Palau, he tried to enlist but as he was in defense work, he couldn't sign up here in Kitsap so he went to Seattle and enlisted in the Marines. He was at Bikini when the bomb was tested and then put on a ship heading toward Japan to participate in the invasion when they dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He said he was lucky when the bomb was dropped and the war ended as the casualty rates projected for the landing were that over 90% would be killed in the first waves. Tokyo Harbor has an island in the middle that is honeycombed with tunnels, munitions storage and gun emplacements. The island rises almost straight up from the water and the landing there would have been tough, especially with the guns to blow landing craft out of the water.