INVASION
The tranquility pre-war Guam vanished when just hours after the assault on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces also attacked the American island of Guam. The modest U.S. Navy presence there had not been intended to stand against an enemy force. After a brief, but valiant resistance by the military and civilians, the island was surrendered. Almost 22,000 civilian residents faced occupation by America’s enemy. For more than two-and-a-half-years, the Chamorro people struggled to keep families together and the dream of remaining a free people alive.
The Empire of Japan had embarked on an ambitious goal—to control the Pacific. Their deadly surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor cut deeply into U.S. military resources in the Pacific and aroused the U.S. to enter World War II.
Pearl Harbor was not the only American island attacked on December 7. About four hours later across the International Dateline, it was already December 8 on Guam. Many Chamorros were in the main Catholic cathedral in Agana celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and first communion for some of the children.
All attention was on the boys and girls dressed in white. At first the congregation mistook the droning of planes to be American and paid no heed. Soon whispers rustled through the crowd that enemy bombs were falling around Sumay Village at Apra Harbor about six miles south. In an instant, the day’s joy changed to terror.
The news spreading through the church was true. Sumay and the Navy yard and docks at Piti were under attack. As their tin and thatch-roofed homes and businesses came under fire, the people who lived and worked in Sumay ran to the shelter against the nearby cliff line. Not everyone made it. Two Chamorros died from a strike on the Pan American Airways hotel.
Sumay Village was one of the island’s oldest settlements and by the 1940, it was a fast-growing commercial district whose centerpiece was the Pan American Airways station. The true targets of the Japanese attack were the Cable Communication Station and fuel storage tanks there. Another prize was the Marine Corps barracks and its contingent of 153 Marines located on the cliff above Sumay.
Back in Agana, the mass had ended quickly. Although most of the city’s 10,000 residents had fled to the relative safety of the dense jungle, scores of people were wounded or killed when the Japanese bombers turned their attention to Agana that same afternoon,
Also that day, the Navy’s USS Penguin was sunk. An aging, converted minesweeper, the Penguin was attacked while underway a mile off Agat. The crew returned fire and headed back to port. Near the harbor’s headlands of Orote Point the Penguin began to list and the captain ordered her scuttled. Survivors of the enemy’s attacks loaded the dead and injured into lifeboats and brought them ashore. Some of the able-bodied crewmen had to swim to dry land.
As he swam to shore that day, one Penguin crewman glanced back over his shoulder at the sinking ship. He says his thoughts were that it seemed simply unthinkable that the United States had been, or even could be, attacked. Once ashore, the Penguin’s survivors joined in defending the Agana power plant and other key positions.
December 9 brought a second day of aerial attacks. Japanese planes bombed and strafed Agana and Sumay again and other villages around the island. Even today survivors of the terrifying assaults recall that the planes flew so low they could actually see the pilots’ faces in the cockpits—a chilling aspect of their ordeal.
The aerial attacks, launched from Japanese-controlled Saipan some 125 miles to the north, were part of a greater plan. Soon the Japanese would land ground forces and seize the island.
After two days of aerial attack, Naval Governor Capt. George McMillin received news in the early morning hours of December 10, that the Japanese were invading by land. He ordered the small contingent of Marines to remain at Orote Peninsula to defend Apra Harbor.
Meanwhile, McMillin turned to the members of the Insular Force Guard to defend his headquarters on the Plaza de Espana in Agana. The home guard consisted of about 100 Chamorro men who had only recently been trained by the Marines.
The Insular Forces were greatly outnumbered and inadequately armed to repel the disciplined professionals of the Japanese Army South Seas Detachment. Most of their weapons were left over from World War I. Their arsenal consisted of three machine guns, four Thompson submachine guns, 50 .30 caliber pistols, six Browning automatic pistols, 12 .22 caliber regulation rifles, and 85 Springfield rifles, which were labeled “Do Not Shoot. For Training Only.” The Insular Guardsmen had never been allowed to fire any of the weapons with live ammunition.
At about 2 a.m., some 5,500 Japanese invasion troops began landing at beaches around Guam. One contingent landed at Dungca’s Beach in Tamuning and headed to the Plaza. As they passed through jungles and neighborhoods, they shot or bayoneted anyone they encountered. Meeting one group of 17 fleeing in a vehicle, they killed 13, bayonetted three and one escaped.
By 3 a.m., teams of Insular Force Guardsmen were positioned at the four corners of the Plaza and other strategic defense locations. Among the guardsmen was Pedro Cruz whose team waited at the corner of the Plaza nearest the cathedral.
With him was Ben Chargalauf and a young boy named Ramon Camacho, who had broken curfew to see the action first-hand. Unable to persuade the young Camacho to leave, Cruz finally gave him his own handgun. The three lay prone with their weapons aimed into the darkness.
It was still too dark to see, but Cruz heard a canteen clanking as the enemy invaders neared the Plaza. Opening fire, he fought for control as he operated the machine gun for the first time with ammunition. Chargalauf fed the ammunition until the gun jammed. Cruz knelt to free it as bullets flew. He heard Ben moan. Then Ramon cried out “I’m hit!”
Cruz fired again and again until the gun jammed once more and he could hear the honking of a truck horn. The Insular Guardsmen knew the battle was over. They retreated to the headquarters building where they were assembled under Japanese guard.
It was still not yet fully daylight. Cruz saw the Japanese soldiers spread an American flag on the ground and illuminate it with their flashlights. It was a signal to spotter planes overhead that Guam had surrendered. For Cruz, this was the moment his island home was lost to the enemy.
“I don’t care what you call it, but to me, my willingness to die for my country will never be exhausted. I say this, the Chamorros feel like I do. We would die for our country anytime,” Pedro Cruz said in sharing his first-hand experiences.
Inside the Navy headquarters, representatives of Japanese Commander Hiroshi Hayashi demanded that Naval Governor McMillin sign the surrender. That morning 21 Chamorros lay dead or dying. The Japanese had also suffered casualties. The flag of the Japanese Empire now flew where American flags had waved for more than forty years.
A nurse at the nearby Naval hospital recalls the startling sight. She says she will never ever forget the the Rising Sun flying where her beloved Stars-and-Stripes had flown for so long.
