It Was About the People: American Memorial Park Museum
As you step into the museum, you are confronted with two very different people. On the left, Emperor Hirohito of Japan and on the right, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. During World War II, these two leaders would send their soldiers to engage in epic battles over many remote islands in the Pacific, including Saipan and Tianin.
Although the Chamorros people have inhabited the Mariana Islands for nearly 4,000 years, their culture and history took a quick turn with the Japanese take over in 1914.
Although the Chamorros, Carolinians and Koreans were treated as lower class citizens by the Japanese, access to consumer goods, better roads and free healthcare did benefit the local people for a time.
Although the Mariana Islands had been ruled by Spain for two centuries, Japanese yen, language books, children's games and other artifacts from the pre-world period show that Japanese culture became dominant.
By 1942, Japan had reached its high-water mark, controlling vast territories across the Pacific and Asia. Soon, the people of the Mariana Islands found themselves at the front lines of defense of the main Japanese Islands.
When people think of the battles in the Pacific, often it is forgotten that there needed to be safe and effective supply lines to feed, clothe, arm and sustain the thousands of Marines, infantry men, and sailors who served in the Pacific Campaign.
Here are some of the standard issue gear for U.S. troops who served on Saipan. Besides protecting the head, helmets were often used as pots for cooking, storage for personal belongings (such as cigarettes) and basins for shaving.
Besides the war on the ground, carrier and land based pilots from both nations waged a war for control of the skies above the Mariana Islands, using their state-of-the-art aircraft.
In addition to using rifles, machine guns, grenades and bombs, fighters on both sides often engaged each other in brutal hand-to-hand combat using their bayonets, swords and knives. The weapons on display in the American Memorial Park Museum are a sober reminder of the cost exacted for these islands during World War II.
After the Battle of Saipan, Japanese soldiers' personal items and war relics, such this Japanese type 94 pistol, continue to be unearthed and protected.
It is important for us to remember that the Mariana Islands Campaign was about people. One side may have won, but in the end, both sides paid a heavy price in the lives that were lost.
The U.S. military set up internment camps during the Battles of Saipan and Tianin, providing shelter for civilians and prisoners of war. For civilians on these islands, life went from normal to complete devastation as villages, farms and houses were destroyed.
While living in the camps, Chamorros and Carolinians used pandanus leaves and local woods to make purses, gretas, model oxcarts and other handicrafts. Oil lamps, ashtrays, humidors and mass bells were made from artillery shells.
Soon after the successful capture of the Mariana Islands, the United States and its allies were able to quicken the end of the war through successful land, naval and air battles.
Although most Americans had never even heard of such islands as Saipan and Iwo Jima, the heroism and sacrifice of American forces became known throughout the Nation, as is evident from some of the publications shown here.
Although the pain of war could never be removed, the people of the Mariana Islands moved forward, once again adjusting to change, first as a United Nations Trust Territory and then, most recently, as a Commonwealth of the United States. The American Memorial Park Museum serves as a reminder to those who visit, whether in person or through "virtual tours", that the events that occurred on these Islands were first and foremost about "people".
