This piece originally ran in the June 2025 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
These seashells were souvenirs collected by Paul C. Shafhauser to remember his time stationed at Tinian Island in the Pacific. Shafhauser was in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II as a B-29 engine specialist. Tinian Island was invaded by the United States in July 1944, not only becoming host to the busiest airfield in the Pacific but also playing a role in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While stationed at Tinian Island, Shafhauser was assigned to the unit that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He took these shells, as well as a coconut from when he was stationed at Pearl Harbor, as mementos.