Search results for gallery
Adoption of “Guamanian”
“Guamanian,” a term that evolved in the early years after World War II, was informally adopted as a means to distinguish between the Chamorros from Guam and the Chamorros from what is now the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Mariana Islands were first colonized by Spain following the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in the sixteenth century.
Governor Henry Larsen
Henry Louis Larsen (1890 – 1962) was a lieutenant general of the US Marine Corps, and was the governor of Guam from 15 August 1944 to 30 May 1946. His major mission of World War II was as Island Commander.
Guam Congress Walkout
On 5 March 1949, the Guam Congress walked out as a protest against the US Naval Government and to underscore its quest for a measure of self-government and US citizenship. The protest drew nationwide attention through the press, and thereafter fairly quick action by the US Congress and President Harry Truman.
Carlos Pangelinan Taitano
Carlos Pangelinan Taitano (1917 – 2009) was one of the leaders from Guam who brought about the signing of the Organic Act for Guam. He arranged for the crucial media coverage of the Guam Congress Walkout of 1949 that led to CHamorus attaining US citizenship and civil government.
US Navy War Crimes Trials in Guam
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.
Japanese Occupation of Guam
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 Military Administration of Guam
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:
Impact of Japanese Military Occupation of Guam
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.
Spanish-American War
Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico became territories of the United States as part of the terms of the Treaty of Paris that officially ended the Spanish-American War of 1898. Since the war’s inception, scholars have written much about the motives behind United States’ policy makers’ decision to go to war with Spain, a war that thrust America into a new role as an imperial power.
Robert O’Brien: US Prisoner of War
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.