917 This is the main monument at the Peace Park Memorial, which serves as both a Christian and Buddhist site.
930 This is the view of the Marpi WWII Memorial from the Peace Park. It was closed because the US Park Service operates it.
939 Looking down on the Tanapag Lagoon from the overlook. This was the site of the northern landing beach for the recapture of Saipan from the Japanese. They don't' show in the picture because the light was too dim but you could see the shadows of some wrecks through the clear water. The small white object just atop the second green peninsula to the right and a little below the most distant hotel high-rise is the Amsterdam. To her right there are some freighters moored in the lagoon.
956 This is Bird Island. Not far inland from here is Suicide Cliff.
Oct 11 – Saipan, Northern Marianas Islands. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is one of two limited areas that are Commonwealths of the United States; the other is Puerto Rico. It consists of fifteen islands in the western Pacific Ocean located about three-quarters of the way between Hawaii and the Philippines. The land area of all islands is about 183 square miles and the population is over 53,000 of which over 90% live on the island of Saipan. Of the fourteen other islands only two, Tinian and Rota are permanently inhabited. The Commonwealth's center of government is in the village of Capital Hill on Saipan. Since Saipanese consider the island as one community, Saipan is usually listed as the capital of the CNMI not Capitol Hill.
The Northern Mariana Islands combined with our last port, Guam, make up the Marianas Islands archipelago. The southern islands are limestone, with level terraces and fringing coral reefs. The northern islands are volcanic, with active volcanoes on several islands. The volcano on Agrihan has the highest elevation at over 3,000 feet.
Saipan follows the traditional pattern of this area. After the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain lost control of Guam to the US and sold the other Marianas Islands, including Saipan, as well as the Caroline Islands to Germany. They ran the islands as part of the colony of German New Guinea and did little in terms of development.
Early in World War I, Japan declared war on Germany and invaded the Northern Marianas. In 1919, the League of Nations awarded the islands to Japan, and the Japanese administered them as part of the South Pacific Mandate. During the Japanese period, sugar cane became the main industry of the islands. On Saipan the population before the war was 29,348 Japanese settlers and 3,926 Chamorro and Caroline Islanders.
It was from here that, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, that the Japanese launched an invasion of Guam in December 1941. Since the Northern Marianas had been under Japanese control for more than 20 years, Chamorros were brought to Guam from Saipan to assist the Japanese with island administration. This created a split between Chamorros from the two islands. This split and the harsh treatment of Guamanian Chamorros during the 31-month occupation became the main reasons Guam rejected the attempt at reunification that was approved by the Northern Marianas in the 1960s.
Near the end of World War II, the United States military invaded the Mariana Islands in June 1944, beginning with the Battle of Saipan. This battle lasted about a month. Of the 30,000 Japanese troops that defended Saipan, fewer than 1,000 remained alive at battle's end. Over 20,000 Japanese civilians were also killed, or committed suicide rather than be captured. U.S. forces then recaptured Guam beginning on July 21 and invaded Tinian on July 24. The Enola Gay was based on Tinian when they made their historic trip to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima about a year later.
Personal Note: The bombing of Hiroshima has become controversial over the years because we all have such short memories. I, personally, am very thankful that Harry Truman dropped Fat Man and then Big Boy because Diana's father was in China with the US Marines preparing for the invasion of the Japanese homeland. If we think the battles for Okinawa or Iwo Jima were bloodbaths, they would have been child's play compared to the slaughter on both sides including Japanese civilians that would have resulted during this invasion. It is very unlikely that Diana's Dad would have survived and that means Diana would not have been born. The fact that the Japanese did not surrender after the first bomb was dropped is more evidence of the deeply entrenched idea of no surrender. Harry saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilian lives because he was willing to take the drastic step he took and no amount of sob-sister revisionist history can change that fact.
The war did not end for everyone with the signing of the armistice. The last group of Japanese holdouts surrendered on Saipan on December 1, 1945. (On Guam, Shoichi Yokoi of the Japanese Army, unaware that the war had ended, hid in a jungle cave in the Talofofo area of the island until 1972. The east side of Guam is very sparsely populated and roads are scarce. Much of the northeast is covered by Anderson Air Force Base and the central east coast is a restricted military zone used by the Navy and Marine Corps. I wasn't reminded about Shoichi until today. I remember the headlines when he was discovered.)
Saipan is the largest island of the CNMI and has a population of just over 48,000. It's the 2nd largest island in the Mariana Islands archipelago, after Guam and is about 12 miles long and 5 and a half miles wide. It has an area of about 44 square miles and is about 120 miles north of Guam and 5 nautical miles northeast of Tinian. The Saipan Channel runs between these two islands.
The western side of the island has sandy beaches protected by a coral reef that forms a large lagoon. The eastern side is mainly rugged rocky cliffs and a reef. The highest elevation on Saipan is the 1,560 foot tall Mount Tapochau. This unusual limestone formation is not the result of volcanic activity like most mountains in the Mariana Islands. There is a ridge of hills north of the mountain that is the remains of a volcano. This is also the direction of Banzai Cliff.
Saipan has forests and some small native forest remains on very steep slopes. Coconuts, papayas, and Thai hot peppers grow wild on the island and mango, taro root, and bananas are grown by local farmers. Saipan is home to a number of endemic bird species including the endangered Nightingale Reed Warbler.
From a European perspective, Saipan was discovered by Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa in 1521 on board of Spanish ship Trinidad that he commanded after the death of Ferdinand Magellan. The Spanish formally occupied the island in 1668. From 1670, it became a port of call for Spanish and occasional English, Dutch and French ships as a supply station for food and water. The native population shrank dramatically to European-introduced diseases and conflicts over land and the survivors were forcibly relocated to Guam in 1720 for better control and assimilation. Under Spanish rule, the island was developed into ranches for raising cattle and pigs, which were used to provision Spanish galleons on their way to Mexico. Around 1815, many during a period while the Chamorros were imprisoned on Guam in the early 1800 Carolinians from Satawal settled Saipan and the Chamorro lost their land.
After the Spanish-American War of 1898, Saipan was occupied by the United States. However, it was then sold by Spain to the Germany with the rest of the Northern Mariana Islands. Since the Germans never really took control the Spanish landowners remained in control.
After the Japanese Saipan was one of the most important islands in the South Pacific Mandate and became the center of subsequent Japanese settlement. Immigration began in the 1920s by ethnic Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese and Okinawans, who developed large-scale sugar plantations. Under Japanese rule, extensive infrastructure development occurred, including the construction of port facilities, waterworks, power stations, paved roads and schools, along with entertainment facilities and Shinto shrines. By October 1943, Saipan had a civilian population of 29,348 Japanese settlers and 3,926 Chamorro and Caroline Islanders.
Japan considered Saipan as part of the last line of defenses for the Japanese homeland, and thus had heavily committed to defending it. The Imperial Japanese Army and imperial Japanese Navy garrisoned Saipan heavily from the late 1930s, building numerous coastal artillery batteries, shore defenses, underground fortifications and an airstrip. In mid-1944, nearly 30,000 troops were based on the island.
The Battle of Saipan from June – July 1944 was one of the major campaigns of World War II. The US Marines and Army landed on the beaches of the southwestern side of the island, and spent more than three weeks in heavy fighting to secure the island from the Japanese. The battle cost the Americans 3,426 killed and 10,364 wounded, whereas of the estimated 30,000 Japanese defenders, only 921 were taken prisoner. Weapons and the tactics of close quarter fighting also resulted in high civilian casualties. Civilian shelters were located virtually everywhere on the island, with very little difference noticeable to attacking Marines. The standard method of clearing suspected bunkers was with high-explosive and/or high-explosives augmented with gelignite, napalm or diesel fuel. Some 20,000 Japanese civilians perished during the battle, including over 1,000 who committed suicide by jumping from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff" rather than be taken prisoner. This mainly because the Japanese propaganda machine said they would be mistreated by the US. Undoubtedly a projection of their own evil treatment of prisoners.
Seabees of the U.S. Navy also landed to participate in construction projects. With the capture of Saipan, the American military was now only 1,300 miles away from the Japanese home islands, which placed most Japanese cities within striking distance of United States' B-29 Superfortress bombers. The loss of Saipan was a heavy blow to both the military and civilian administration of Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō, who was forced to resign. After the war, nearly all of the surviving Japanese settlers were repatriated to Japan.
After the end of World War II, Saipan became part of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands with the other Northern Marianas. The island continued to be dominated by the United States military. Since 1978, the island has been a municipality of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The military presence began to be replaced by tourism in the 1990s, but still plays an important role in the local economy.
To get to Saipan we sailed across the Marianas Trench, at over 35,000 feet the deepest known point in the ocean. We arrived on time and were greeted by rain and wind. Some Saipanese dancers were waiting at the pier but were not performing. As the first tour busses were rolling off the pier it stopped raining and they began to dance. Security was pretty tight on the busses and the locals coming into the area. I think the dancers were also held up by the checkpoint. Sometimes when we visit small places that don't often get large groups of visitors the local LEOs want to practice their security measures so they pull out all the stops. Not really convenient for us but understandable from their point of view. They don't want to wait until a large group of VIPs visit the island to test the efficiently of their protocols.
Our guide for the day, Larry, was born in Hawaii, went to school in Oregon, worked in the Peace Corps in the Philippines, met his wife in Hong Kong and after they married, moved to Saipan. He said he hates crowds and he's sure in the right place. The roads were mostly empty as we drove around the island. He teaches at the local community college and has lived here for 32 years. Our driver, Eddie, is the youngest bus driver we've ever had. He could not have been older than 22.
We tied up at Charlie Dock in the port just north of Garapan, the main city, about in the center of the island's west coast. Driving up the west side of the island on Guam Route 1 we passed evidence of the rise and fall of the Japanese economy. In the late 70s, 80s and into the 90s the Japanese economy was booming. Millions of Japanese tourists were everywhere. The Japanese built several large hotels on the island to accommodate this tourist boom and when it went bust so did the hotels. We passed a huge hotel called The Palms that was completely shuttered and the entrance blocked. Larry said it had belonged to Japan Airlines and was always full but that it has been closed for years and no prospects for opening it are on the horizon.
Not far from this huge hotel, on the inland side of the road is a totally derelict shopping center. It was a multi-story building that, from the look of the design was built in the 1980s. Unlike the hotel, where steps are being taken to make sure it does not just fall down, the shopping center is over grown with vines and trees and is obviously not being looked after. The main clients of this center more or less in the middle of nowhere were probably Japanese tourists staying at the now closed hotel.
This is a very green island. The jungle is very thick, a combination of trees, shrubs and vines growing in a wild and dense tangle that would be very difficult to penetrate. We are driving up the coastal plane. There are two ridges inland from us. The one furthest away is the tallest. This is Hara Kiri Ridge and the Marines were responsible for working their way along this ridge headed north. The Army had the pleasure of slogging up the valley. I don't know which would have been toughest. On the ridge you have caves and jungle to deal with. In the valley you had fire from the ridge above and the much thicker jungle of the valley floor to deal with. Hobson's choice really. I think the army got the valley because it required a larger unit to cover it and the Army had the larger force.
Our first destination is almost at the north end of the west side of the island, the Peace Park. We turned inland off route one and climbed to the top of the ridge facing the ocean. I don't know if it's Hara Kiri Ridge this far north but it's part of the same chain. The memorial was a joint effort between the people of Micronesia, the Japanese and the US Trust Territory Government. The shrine itself looks like an inverted bomb or rocket sticking half way out of the ground as though it had buried itself on impact. A square, white vertical post swoops up from the back and atop the post is a metal cross. Below the cross the white post is pierced by a metal circle which the post bisects. On top of the inverted rocket looking base is a metal statue of a standing Buddha. Again there were numerous small memorials and shrines lined up along the edge of the area along the cliffs.
Looking down on the coastal plane we could see a large memorial laid out in a fan shape with several structures on it. The flag poles were bare so I'm assuming it's the Marpi WWII Memorials, a collection of memorials for the people who died defending Saipan, Tinian and Guam. A little further along we stopped at an overlook for Tanapang Lagoon just north of Garapan. We could see the Amsterdam at Charlie Dock and in the lagoon there were wrecks from WWII. Nothing like Chuuk but you could make them out through the very clear water. The water was an amazing number of shades of blue and aqua but the light was not right to capture them.
After a short stop at the overlook we headed across the Saipan to the east coast and stopped at a very beautiful bay for a look at Bird Island. The island is about half way down a portion of the shoreline that has caved in and because the island protects part of that caved in section, wave action has created two crescent shaped beaches one north and one south of the island. These two beaches take up the center quarter of the bay. The remainder of the bay is ringed by rocky cliffs. There were several viewing platforms down the side of the cliff we were parked atop, each provided a different perspective on the area and each was well worth the climb down and back up. The entire area is a protected zone. You can go down to the beach but can't leave anything there or take anything that's there away and definitely can't walk on the reef or molest the birds.
From Bird Island we drove back toward the pier and stopped at an area called The Last Command Post. I wasn't really the last one but it's close to the road and has easy access. It's carved into the face of a Suicide Cliff about 20 feet up. The circular cliff provided a good view across about 270˚. The other 90˚ was not exposed as the cliff continued upward for at least another 30 feet. Along the base of the cliff they have displays of Japanese shore guns, howitzers and one very small tank, probably 2 men inside, the driver and gunner. If three guys operated this tank they had to be very small indeed. Whatever hit it split the turret, blew out part of the body and popped the turret hatch clean off. The body appeared to be made from quarter inch steel plate. Not really much use against anything but small arms fire. From the location and extent of the damage I'd say it was hit with a bazooka rocket that entered the body from the left and exploded inside. Most of the bent metal was facing outward except for a small part in the left front panel. Most, but not all of the cannons showed the damage typical of having a thermite grenade put in the muzzle. A quick and sure way to be sure that gun wasn't shooting at anyone anymore. It does not appear that any of this equipment has been restored in any way. They were simply moved here for people to see. At the north end of this park is a memorial to the Japanese who committed suicide on by jumping off Suicide Cliff behind the park. Apparently they had been told that if they surrendered to the Americans they would be tortured so they killed themselves instead.
It must have been an epidemic of suicides because our next stop, Banzai Cliff on the short North Shore of Saipan, was also a place of mass suicides, men, women and children. Suicide Cliff was a little way inland, from Banzai Cliff you could land in the rocks below or in the ocean. There are reports that the blood of those smashed on the rocks drew in sharks that attacked those who fell into the ocean. One seven year old boy became snagged on the brush and rocks part way down the cliff and was rescued by American soldiers. He was reunited with his relatives in Japan and now comes back to Saipan every year to honor his parents who died at Banzai Cliff.
It's actually a very nice stretch of shoreline. The green slopes at the top of the dark cliffs with the blue and white water crashing against their base. A long row of monuments line the cliff edge here. A beautiful but sad place.
From there it was back into Garapan to visit the American Memorial Park. This large area north of the city proper is part protected wetland, part public marina, part recreational area with baseball fields, basketball courts and soccer fields and part war memorial. The museum here is closed due to the government shutdown but the park is still open. The memorial itself was without it normal compliment of 5 flags, the flag of the USA and one flag for each of the services honored, Army, Navy, Marines and Army Air Corps. The five flag poles stand at the center of a large circular plaza. On 4 foot walls around the plaza are four foot by 3 foot marble slabs with the names of the 5,050 soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who died in the battle for Saipan and Tinian. This area was considered so important by Japan that the Japanese Navy was sent to drive the Americans back. The Japanese and American Navy, under the command of Admiral Ray Spruance, met in the waters just west of the island and the Japanese were soundly defeated. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was to be the last great carrier battle of the war. The losses to the Japanese in both ships and planes were so devastating they never recovered.
It was a day of much beauty and solemn reflection. I'm not sure how these sights affected non-vets but this vet was both sad and grateful for the sacrifices made by the men remembered at the American Memorial. Each name on those plaques is a life cut short. For every name on that list a friend or friends watched him die and experienced that helpless feeling that comes over you in those circumstances and feel a little ashamed to acknowledge that just a small part of you was glad that it wasn't you. For every name on that list, ten times that many relatives, friends and co-workers mourned his loss. For each name on that list three times more were wounded. There's too much happening to feel any of this in the heat of the moment. But later, when you have some time alone or when you are trying to get some much needed rest, these emotions come over you in waves. I wouldn't be at all surprised if every vet that saw combat didn't have just a little touch of survivor's guilt somewhere deep inside. I guess it's good to let these things bubble to the surface every so often. Nothing quite like being surprised by your own emotions. I'm not sure exactly what to expect when we get to the site of my dad's first combat, Guadalcanal. Just have to wait and see.
I wasn't much in the mood for entertainment but went to see the movie Silver Linings Playbook. Have any of you seen this movie? If you have I'd be interested to know what you thought of it. I was in such a rare mood that I actually liked it although I'm pretty sure that 99 times out of 100 I wouldn't have.
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