Saipan is an island in the Northern Mariana Island chain. It was originally settled by the same Chamorro inhabitants who settled Guam. Magellan claimed Saipan for Spain in 1521. Saipan was sold to Germany in 1898, and then awarded to Japan after World War I. It is the site of the famous "Marianas Turkey Shoot", a World War II battle in which the Japanese lost over 600 aircraft (flown by undertrained and inexperienced pilots) and 3 aircraft carriers.
We arrived in Saipan on Thursday morning. (Michenna stayed with her very good friends down the street and did not miss us at all.) On the recommendation of a friend, we rented a car and drove to our hotel. It was too early to check in, so we wandered through the Paseo de Marianas, a pedestrian street near our hotel. We ate lunch at Tony Roma's (I know, so exotic, huh?). The manager at Tony Roma's told us about the Thursday night market on the street in front of our hotel. It sounded exciting. We walked and shopped and then checked into our hotel.
The market was bigger than I expected. It seemed that ALL the restaurants listed on our tourist map had a booth. Most places were selling 5 items for $5. We ate very well that night. I even tried a strawberry-pina colada snow cone. The biggest surprise was the large number of Russian tourists we encountered. I was not expecting Russians. Japanese and Chinese tourists, definitely, but Russian tourists?
We took the food back to our room because it started raining. It was a typical tropical rainstorm, quick to start and quick to end. We wandered back out to the market and enjoyed the sights and (most of the) sounds.
The picture above was taken from our first balcony, in the room where the air conditioning died. After that happened, the Hyatt upgraded us to a room in the South Wing. The bathroom was much nicer. :) The view from the balcony was not as pretty, though.
Friday morning we put on our swimsuits to head down to the Grotto. We thought we could swim there, but we were mistaken. However, the view from the Observation Deck was beautiful. We took the steps down to the Grotto itself. Some very friendly Japanese tourists offered - through international hand gestures - to take our picture as a couple, which I thought was fun.
I think the next picture is my favorite - my "model" pose, sitting on the rock.
After we left the Grotto, we drove up to Suicide Cliff. Just before the Americans landed at Saipan in June 1944, the Japanese soldiers had told the Chamorro and Carolinian locals horrendous lies about the way American soliders treated prisoners of war. Long story short, these lies were convincing and thousands of Japanese civilians and native inhabitants threw themselves and their family members off the cliff to avoid the Americans. The feeling I had standing on the cliff was similar to the feeling I had in what remains of Dachau (a concentration camp in Germany) - a feeling of sadness, and of reverence for the suffering that happened there.
Next we stopped at the Last Japanese Command Post. It is, as you see, a small room hollowed out in the side of the cliff. I think I would have been terrified to sit in this command post waiting to be discovered or killed.
Last we went to Banzai Cliff. A large storm was heading our way, so we only spent about 3 minutes there. I thought the cave in the background looked so cool. I also loved the way the waves washed over the edges of the island.
We waited out the storm in our hotel room, and then set out to look for some lunch. We ate at a restaurant called Moby Dick's, which served homemade clam chowder in a homemade bread bowl. (We liked it so much, we went back for more clam chowder in bread bowls on Saturday.) We played at the beach all afternoon. Then we headed to Teppanyaki - one of the hotel restaurants - for dinner. Excellent food and entertainment. We ended the day at the i Sagua spa with side-by-side massages and facials. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Saturday morning we walked to the American Memorial Park, part of the National Park system. The museum was incredible; there were 8-10 laminated booklets with stories from those who lived through the war in their own words. I spent most of the time with tears in my eyes. I am proud of the military members who set a good example when they came to Saipan in 1944. There were stories of soldiers who had given their candy, canteens, rations, anything they could to the native population. Some soldiers had helped carry the elderly to safety. Some had discovered children and babies left alive in caves where everyone else was dead.
One of the most moving stories was about a dentist named Benjamin Salomon. I found an article about the event in the Journal of the California Dental Association,
"On June 15, 1944, the 105th landed on Saipan, Marianas Islands, where the Japanese army had been reduced from 30,000 troops to 9,000 troops with a limited weapons supply. Refusing to surrender, approximately 5,000 Japanese troops advanced on the American soldiers one last time on July 7, the day Salomon fought his first and last battle. According to information from the U.S. Army Center for Military History, it was one of the largest attacks attempted in the Pacific Theater during World War II. In the first minutes of the attack, approximately 30 wounded soldiers walked, crawled, or were carried into Salomon’s aid station; and the small tent soon filled with wounded men.
As Salomon struggled to work on his men, he looked over and saw a Japanese soldier bayoneting one of the wounded soldiers lying near the tent. He turned around and saw two more Japanese soldiers appearing in the front entrance to the tent. As he grabbed a wounded soldier’s rifle and fired on the enemy soldiers, four more crawled under the tent walls. Rushing them, Salomon kicked the knife out of the hand of one, shot another, and bayoneted a third. He butted the fourth enemy soldier in the stomach and a wounded comrade then shot and killed the enemy soldier.
Walking outside, Salomon saw that the machine-gunners protecting the tent were dead. Realizing the severity of the situation, he returned to the tent and ordered the wounded to try to get back to the regimental aid station, while he attempted to hold off the enemy. He was heard to say to the others in charge, "Everybody’s dead out there. I can do these guys more good out there than I can in here. I’ll hold them off until you get them to safety. See you later."
That was the last time anyone saw Salomon alive. The regimental historian, Capt. Edmund J. Love, was present the next day when they found Salomon’s body bent over a machine gun, his finger still on the trigger.
Love later wrote, "The Japanese dead lay scattered before him like trees felled by a tropic storm." He counted 98 Japanese bodies in front of Salomon’s position. Salomon himself had 76 bullet wounds in his body."
(http://www.cda.org/page/Library/cda_member/pubs/journal/jour0902/medal.html)
We wandered through the rest of the Park and looked at the memorials. The hardest one to read was dedicated to all the local inhabitants who died during the 1944 battles. It listed names and ages. Far too many were infants, or children under the age of 5.
Another big storm rolled in, so we decided to eat lunch, finish shopping, and change to an earlier flight home. We loved our trip to Saipan. I'm going to try to take Michenna to Saipan sometime in the next few months.
