On July 15 and 16, 1944, with the American forces approaching Guam near the end of the Japanese occupation of the island in World War II, Japanese soldiers massacred nearly fifty Chamorro men and women from Malesso’ in two separate confrontations in the Tinta and Faha areas just outside the village of Malesso’.
War Atrocities: Tinta and Faha Massacres, Malesso Read Post »
Some months before the end of the Pacific War, the US Navy impaneled a war crimes commission for Guam. The responsibility of the commission, a national one rather than an international one as at Nuremberg and Tokyo, was to bring to trial suspected Japanese and native war criminals.
US Navy War Crimes Trials in Guam Read Post »
The outbreak of the Pacific War began with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on 8 December (7 December in Hawai’i) 1941 with a subsequent air attack on US military facilities on Guam. In the early hours before dawn on 10 December 370 land combat unit members of the Japanese Navy and 2,700 soldiers of the Army’s South Seas Detachment landed on Guam at five bays: Ylig, Malesso’, Humåtak, Tumon, and Hagåtña.
Japanese Occupation of Guam Read Post »
The Japanese Navy was responsible for the administration of Guam after the occupation of the island on 10 December 1941. Japan’s basic military administration policies for its other occupied areas were also applied to Guam:
Japanese Military Administration of Guam Read Post »
The Japanese military occupation of Guam, from December 1941 through July 1944, resulted in a variety of political, economic and social impacts on the people of Guam that emerged for the most part during the post-war period.
Impact of Japanese Military Occupation of Guam Read Post »
Robert O’Brien (1908 – 1988), born in New York, came to Guam in the 1930s with the US Navy. He married Marie Santos Inouye, a woman of CHamoru and Japanese descent, and they had four children, Patricia, Joseph, Henry and Robert. He participated in the short-lived defense of Guam and became a prisoner of war. O’Brien survived four years in a prisoner of war camp in Zentsuji, Japan.
Robert O’Brien: US Prisoner of War Read Post »
George R. Tweed (1902 – 1989) – was an American Navy man who was able to escape capture from the Japanese during their occupation of Guam in World War II, and the only American to survive the entire occupation in hiding.
Father Jesus Baza Duenas (1911 – 1944) was the second CHamoru to be ordained a priest. He led the Catholic Church during the Japanese occupation of Guam during World War II and was later killed by the Japanese in July of 1944.
Father Jesus Baza Duenas Read Post »
From a religious perspective, World War II in Guam, or I Tiempon Chapoñes as Chamorros/CHamorus referred to it, was traumatic for a number of reasons. The Japanese invasion and occupation of the island was the most jarring and traumatic event in recent Guam history.
WWII: Religious Life during the Japanese Occupation Read Post »
