WWII: Prisoners of War Sent to Japan

Nearly 500 Americans from Guam taken to camps in Japan. After Guam was captured by the Japanese 10 December 1941, the Americans who remained behind were taken prisoner–477 military personnel (including five female nurses, one civilian woman and her newborn daughter) and 100 civilian men, including businessmen and the American Catholic priests, as well as the Spanish Catholic Bishop, Miguel Olano. According to official records nineteen of them died while they were prisoners. All of them suffered from malnutrition and exposure.

WWII: Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi, Last Straggler on Guam

Hid in Guam jungles. Shoichi Yokoi (1915 – 1997) was a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army, stationed on Guam during the Japanese Occupation of the island during World War II (December 1941- July 1944).

WWII: Oral War Histories of the CHamoru People

Guam is attacked. In the early morning of 8 December 1941, Japanese war planes flew to Guam from Saipan and bombed the island. In Sumai, the Standard Oil tanks caught fire from strafing and bombing. The Marine Barracks, the Cable Station and the Pan American facilities, also in Sumai, and the Navy landing docks in Piti suffered damage. The USS Penguin came under heavy attack and sank off Orote Point after being scuttled by the crew. While a few crew were injured they all made it ashore in rafts. Later on, the skipper died at the hospital.

WWII: 45 CHamorus Caught in Wake Invasion

Pan Am employees become Wake Island Defenders. Before the outbreak of World War II, 45 Chamorro men were employed by Pan American Airways at the company’s facilities in Wake Island, one of the stops on the Pan Am Clipper transPacific air service initiated in 1935. Guam was also a stop. The men worked as kitchen helpers, hotel service attendants, and laborers. But the peaceful life on Wake was shattered 8 December 1941, when Japanese aircraft bombed the island, killing five men from Guam and wounding five others.

WWII: Rising Sun Dawns on Guam

Japan attacks the island. Saburu Kurusu, diplomatic pouch in hand, stepped off the Pan American Airways Clipper at Sumai while rumors persisted in Guam that war with Japan was imminent. But news reports elsewhere were saying that the Washington-bound Kurusu, special envoy for Emperor Hirohito appointed by the Japanese imperial government, was enroute to peace talks with high American officials.

WWII: Guam an Obstacle to Japan’s Ocean Empire

All Micronesian islands under Japan’s rule except Guam. In the US Naval Era of Guam (1898-1941), life was generally as it had been for decades. Except for the presence of a small Navy contingent, the PanAm Clipper Service and the Cable Station at Sumai, Guam was basically a land of farmers and fishermen, with people living a simple lifestyle.

WWII: Guam Combat Patrol Hunted Japanese Stragglers

Killed 117 Japanese stragglers, captured five. Although Guam was liberated from Japan by the US military on 21 July 1944, and declared secured on 10 August, efforts continued until 1948 to ferret Japanese troops who were hiding out. Too proud to dishonor their country or their emperor, some Japanese soldiers chose not to surrender but instead took to the caves, jungles, and swamps of Guam.

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