LIBERATION

In July 1944, the Americans returned to Guam. The major battle they fought to a retake the island was part of a greater plan, that of winning World War II. For Chamorros, the return of the Americans meant freedom and an end to more than two-and-a-half years of enemy occupation. Freedom is not without its price. About 700 Chamorros lost their lives during the war years. In the conflict to retake the island, a majority of Chamorros lost their homes, churches, businesses and schools. Recovery from such devastation would be not be easy, but Guam was once again part of America and her people were once again free.

Thirty-one months after surrendering the island to Japanese invasion forces, the Americans had come back to Guam. Their strategy for victory in the Pacific was to retake Guam and the other Marianas Islands and establish bases close enough to strike the Japanese homeland. The strategy was designed to win the War in the Pacific, but it would also serve to free the people of Guam after more than two-and-a-half years of occupation.

The first American battleships arrived on July 9 and began bombarding Guam’s western coastline. Having suffered extremely high casualties in the recent securing of Saipan, the Americans were taking no chances of another bloody building-by-building struggle.

More and more battleships kept arriving and by July 18, the armaments of the enormous fleet of 11 battleships, 24 aircraft carriers and 390 other ships were engaged in taking out any structures the Japanese could use to ambush the invading American ground forces.

The devastating bombardment lasted for 13 days. It was the largest action of its kind in World War II. In this process, the communities of Agana, Asan, Piti, Agat and Sumay were pulverized. The majority of the island’s residents had lived in these homes and frequented these churches, schools, businesses, and public buildings including some which dated back almost 200 years to the Spanish colonial period.

On July 21, 1944, the American invasion began. The Third Marine Division landed northeast of Apra Harbor at Asan. The first Provisional Marine Brigade and the Seventy-seventh U.S. Army Infantry Division landed south of Apra Harbor at Agat.

Armored landing craft, driven by the U.S. Coast Guard, delivered the first men of the Third Marine Division ashore shortly after 8 a.m. Troops charged over the beaches in the face of heavy enemy fire. Despite the days of blasting, the Japanese were ready and waiting in a complex of caves and bunkers in the hills and cliffs above the landing beaches, but by nightfall the Americans held beachheads at Asan and Agat, and some 25,000 American troops were digging in and preparing for the next round of fighting.

The battles continued until on August 10 1945, American forces announced that the island of Guam was secured. The records as of August 11, show that 1,747 U.S. forces had died during the action and 6,053 had been wounded. By August 31, the Japanese casualties were recorded as 18,392 killed and 1,365 surrendered.

Within days of the July 21 landing, American troops began to encounter the Chamorro people. Some were in the concentration camps and others in hiding places of their own choosing.

The Chamorros had passed the weeks of the bombardment and ground battles in makeshift shelters with little food and clean water. Their Japanese guards had disappeared as the battles had intensified. When they first heard the approach of American patrols they were unsure whether the Japanese were returning.

Stories of these first encounters with the American military men were told with heart and joy and even tears even many decades later.

One survivor remembers that he was just a boy out scrounging for coconuts for his family. He looked up to see American Marines looking at him through the brush. They were surprised he spoke English.

Another heard footsteps in the jungle and ran away as fast as he could only to be stopped in his tracks with yells of, “Hey, boy, we won’t hurt you.” The Hershey chocolate bar and Camel cigarettes they offered him were proof that the Americans were back.

And the military men remember those first encounters as well. One says it was the day he saw firsthand what Freedom meant. The welcome from these bedraggled, people was one that made a lifelong impression.

“Youngsters ran alongside of us holding on to our rifles. Old men held our hands and the women cried and cheered and patted our backs. All the hardship and misery and wounds we had suffered melted away at that moment. I said to myself, ‘It has been worth it all.’ I will never forget how grateful the people were."

Chamorro survivors recall that they did not know whether to laugh or cry. They hugged the Marines, even kissed them and tried to give anything that could express their gratitude—scraps of cloth, an egg, coconuts. A grandmother took the hand of a stunned marine. When at last she could find her voice, she gave blessings and whispered, “We knew you would come!”

Very soon the Chamorros were on another overland trek, this time with a protective escort and willing assistance. Their destination was the relative safety of American held territory near Asan. The group stopped overnight on Mount Tenjo.

The American military men secured the overnight campsite, set up tents and passed out rations. For meat, there was canned Spam. One survivor says that even today she would rather eat Spam than steak because it reminds her of that glorious evening. “Oh, we were free!” she says.

As the story is told, the sun was setting over the ocean, the fires flickered, the babies were quiet and the relief among the people was palpable. Slowly a woman’s voice began to sing an old standard, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Others joined in and their voices drifted through the camp in the fading twilight to the vigilant Marines standing guard.

The struggle was not over. Tomorrow the Chamorros would face more dangers to reach resettlement camps behind the front lines. It would be another year before World War II would end and still more years before they would feel resettled. But for that moment the strains of a love song and the promise of Freedom sweetened in the air.

 

Post Liberation
A new chapter of island life began. World War II had interrupted the tranquil pre-war lifestyle and in spite of the heartfelt desire of the some to return to those times, it was not to be.

Military officials now began their new mission to transform Guam into the largest forward staging area for naval and air operations in the assault against Japan. On a local level, they set about providing food and shelter to the residents of a war-ravaged island.

The military sheltered most of the 21,000 Chamorros in various tent resettlement camps. They provided food and medical care. The Chamorros wore clothing provided by the American Red Cross or wore military fatigues, khakis and G.I. T-shirts. Within the year, the military had built 1,400 basic houses in Agat, Sinajana, Barrigada, Talofofo, Yona, Asan, Dededo and—for displaced Sumay Village residents—in Santa Rita.

Families returned to work their land, if it had not been taken for military purposes. Others began working for the military, swelling the island’s pre-war wage earners from 1,200 to 6,000. Gradually the agrarian economy became the wage-based economy it is today.

A few private businesses that had existed before the war received military shipping privileges to jumpstart their new beginnings. By 1945, 21 schools accommodating 7,000 students had reopened. Churches were repaired enough to allow for worship services. It would be many years before the island’s reconstruction was complete, but certainly it had begun.

Meanwhile, there was still a war on. B-29 bombers launched daily strikes on Japan from the refurbished Japanese runways on Guam. Now nicknamed “the Pacific Supermarket,” Guam now supplied the U.S. forces in the area from Apra Harbor. Apra had been dredged and reconfigured and was among the world's busiest ports.

The former Sumay Village and other land around Apra Harbor became Naval Operating Base. Among the buildings erected were 3,000 Quonset Huts. There were 160 new military installations located around the island. An astonishing 200,000 military personnel were stationed on Guam during the period.

The island of Guam itself changed dramatically. Seabees and their bulldozers built bridges and created roads including what is now Marine Corps Drive. What vegetation and coral outcroppings the bulldozers chewed up, they spit back out to fill in marshes and lowlands as the 30-mile-long island was reshaped and rebuilt.

The end of the war came some 13 months after Guam’s Liberation. The Emperor of Japan signed the surrender on September 2, 1945, officially ending World War II.

Every year since the Liberation of Guam, the reunion of Chamorros and Americans has been celebrated. All who died in the struggle, military and civilian, Japanese and American, are memorialized. Special masses are said for the 700 Chamorros who lost their lives.

Liberation Day is an official Guam holiday observed on July 21 with a community parade and a month of carnival, parties and many family reunions and homecomings. During this celebration and at other times, we are fortunate to still be able to hear the first hand accounts and memories of The War as it happened on Guam.

The struggle to retake Guam lasted until August 10. Approximately 1,747 U.S. forces died and some 6,053 were wounded. More than 17,500 Japanese defenders died. History books with the detailed accounts of these battles tell the stories behind these statistics, but there are many personal stories to explore and share. Share yours at PBShare.

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