Liberation Day on Guam-- We Came Back

On June 21, 1898,  U.S. liberated Guam from Spanish rule during the Spanish American War.  Then Japanese invaded Guam the day after Pearl Harbor and killed off the small US Navy and USMC units stationed on Guam.
On June 21, 1944 the U.S. came back to liberate Guam once again.

Despite the rain, in reverence for those US soldiers who gave everything, and those Chamorro villagers who risked everything, we gathered to remember sacrifices from 67 years ago.
MWR sent a newscaster to catch the event and record Barbara Villa Gomez's remembrances of her Grandmother who lived during the war.  Joint Regions Newspaper also covered this event.
This is Sumay, a village and church that was bombed in 1941.  Across the street lies the cemetery of the slain
We went into the War in the Pacific Museum and T. Swell Newman Visitor Center to see a film of the invasion of Guam, occupation and tales of survivors.   Brendan is putting a face to one of the 77th Infantrymen.  The Park Rangers told us that the only way to keep the past alive is to see it through the eyes of those who sacrificed.

There are only a handful of war survivors left on Guam and their stories are poignant and tragic but reminders that good does triumph and forgiveness of atrocities promotes lasting happiness in every generation.

This is a 2 man miniature Japanese submarine parked outside the museum

It took 25 people to span the length of the submarine used in wWII.

We drove to the jungles of Piti and climbed to the hills above the ocean where the Japanese guns were placed to fire on our naval ships.
The Chamorro men were forced to carry these 3, several ton guns up the hillside.  Many of them were crushed and killed when the guns slipped and rolled back on them.  The Chamorro's did everything to delay the guns reaching the top of the rise.  They did not want the guns to fire on the American soldiers who they knew would come back to save them.

God had a hand in the outcome.  These coastal defense guns, three Vickers-type Model 3 140-millimetre, could shoot ammo up to 10 miles offshore and could destroy ships and landing aircraft.  However, the ammunition never made it up the hills before the American takeover.

This gun flipped over in Typhoon Pongsonwa

It is hard to imagine how many lives would have been lost if these guns had been firing-- how many moms would have lost sons.  
One of Brendan's proposed Eagle Projects is to have Navy volunteers and the Park Rangers help in chopping out jungle to clear the path to the ocean.  A daunting task as the jungle is dense, and it closes back in on itself in a matter of months.

We climbed another rise at the War in the Pacific Park beachhead to see the Japanese Pillboxes where more guns fired on U.S. soldiers.

This blue water in Asan was red from the blood of U.S. soldiers who gave everything to rescue this island during WWII.

When I see the blue and red Guam flag and our blue and red U.S. Flag, I think now of the blue ocean flooded with the red blood.  I see the past as present with us, and I am moved by the staggering cost to come back.  It is the least we can do as Americans to revisit the past, to examine and see it through the eyes of a soldier or a survivor.  It is the way that we return to the good and come back to the things that are truly great about America.