Saipan’s Land and Sea: Battle Scars & Sites of Resilience- Day 1

Today marked the official start of the NEH Landmarks Workshop that brought Bill to Guam and Saipan in the first place. As can be seen in the title, the workshop has a broad focus and is designed to examine the impact of WWII on the island and the people from multiple perspectives. The program began at the National Historic Site in Saipan called American Memorial Park. It is dedicated to the events surrounding Saipan’s occupation by Japan during the 1930’s and 1940’s and especially the “liberation” of Saipan by American troops in 1944. After the introductions and logistics were completed, the group moved to Garapan Elementary School where the rest of the morning was spent meeting in a classroom there, getting more details about the island and its people. There are 37 participants in the group this week, representing 18 states, one other country, and 3 US territories (Guam, Rota, and Saipan).

When lunch wrapped up, the group was organized into small teams to ride in vans to sites around the island for closer inspection. The locations included the primary invasion beach the Americans used to come ashore in 1944, the defensive fortifications the Japanese built to repel the assault troops (including bunkers, gun emplacements, and a bomb storage facility) and the location of American Sherman tanks forever stranded offshore in the shallow waters. At each site, professors, historians, and local authorities provided information and insight related to the remnants from WWII and their enduring legacy. As a side note, the unique mixture of concrete the Japanese used (utilizing seawater instead of freshwater in the blending process) created structures that strong still today. The physical structures seem mostly unfazed by weather, wear and tear, or time.