National Geographic : 1948 Jul
The National Geographic Magazine Japanese and Okinawan civilians have been sent to their homelands. Saipan, next door, still functions as a mili tary base, upon a reduced scale. However, this island has a community of nearly 5,000 Chamorros and Caroline islanders. Until war came, they were a minority people among the many Japanese and Okinawan resi dents. The Japanese allowed them little, and the war destroyed the little they possessed. I had seen these folk as they straggled through the Japanese battle lines and made camp in a muddy compound of makeshift shelters. Today the village of Chalan Kanoa is being rebuilt. Many farmers are settled on the soil, other persons have shops, and the Carolinians are operating a fishing company. Saipan Cherishes Its Electric Lights The Chamorros are a proud people. They are mindful of the culture they gained from the Spanish, whose blood is mingled in their veins. They naturally wish to regain what they once had. During the battle for Saipan the island's electric system, like everything else, was de stroyed. To provide electricity, needed on the base, our military forces brought in field generators. As an assistance measure they also furnished current to the island homes. Recently, when the civil administrators were directed to re-establish the people on a self sustaining basis, the subject of electricity was brought before the native councilmen. They were told that the expense of operating such generators was high, and were given the rates that would have to be charged if electricity was provided. The councilmen agreed that the villagers could not afford the expense and would have to turn to kerosene lamps or candles. The people thought otherwise. They ousted the councilmen, elected 13 new members, and decided to keep their lights at whatever cost! Leaving the Marianas, I flew back to the Marshalls to have a postwar look at that large island group. I shipped out of Kwajalein by LST with a civil administration field team on a circuit to a number of the atolls. At the time of my previous visit, many of the Marshallese still were on islands other than their own. Some had been transferred by the Japanese for forced labor. Others had fled from the four Japanese-occupied atolls Jaluit, Mili, Maloelap, and Wotje-which our forces had by-passed in the Marshall Islands campaign. Today the people are back on their home islands. They have been unable to occupy places where the Japanese camped, for these were heavily bombed and are still useless. Nor do they use the war-blasted land spots upon which we set up military installations. But they are comfortably settled on adjacent islands in these same atolls. We stopped at progressive Likiep Atoll, where live the mixed Marshallese descendants of two early Pacific traders, Capelle and )e Brum-one a German, the other Portuguese. When we rode into the lagoon, two midget motorboats came racing out to welcome us. These craft immediately aroused my interest. On other islands I had seen only outrigger canoes. Later I learned that they had been built by one of the Capelles. He had obtained from surplus war supplies two motors used to operate auxiliary generators in airplanes, and then had patterned the tiny hulls after pic tures he had seen in an American magazine! Almost every part showed imaginative in genuity. The steering wheels, for instance, were fashioned from 40-mm. shells. He had split the brass casings, spread them out to form spokes, and then attached a rim cut from plywood. At one stop the island chief asked me to help him make out an order to a U. S. mail order house! Among all the Marshallese, the residents of Rongerik seem most uncertain over their future. They were moved here from Bikini prior to the atom bomb tests in that atoll in the summer of 1946.* Bikini Natives Move Again Rongerik is a considerably smaller island group than was Bikini, and its food supplies are somewhat more limited. Administrative officials have told the people they might move to some other islands and suggested the rich, hitherto unoccupied atoll of Ujelang. But they want to go back to Bikini, not understanding the radioactive forces unloosed there. The subject has been discussed many times. And now they are being moved to Kwajalein until such time as they may select a perma nent home. When I left the Marshalls, preparations were also under way to transfer the 138 na tives of Eniwetok over to Ujelang. Except for sentiment, they can hardly regret leaving, for several of the main islands were razed to their bare coral bases during the war. Eniwetok now is the testing ground for new atomic weapon experiments. * See "Farewell to Bikini," by Carl Markwith, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, July, 1946.