Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War

The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was a turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan. The island was a blaze of fire and steel for over three weeks in the summer of 1944. Visible reminders of the devastation still exist - one can still find human skeletal remains scattered on the jungle floor and in caves throughout the island. Emotional reminders still exist as well, for both the combatants and the civilians who survived the battle.In this work, the survivors - including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war - have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author introduces the volume with a history of the Mariana Islands and other parts of Micronesia and arranges the oral histories by location: Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam in the first half, and by branch of service in the second half.