We enjoy exploring Guam, armed with an excellent map and a GPS. We literally just drive in/out side roads that are dirt/paved to see what’s at the end! One beautiful day we drove north along Route 1, headed towards Anderson AFB, trying to find the Pacific Memorial Park that was shown on our map… roads are notorious unmarked:-( What we found was so solemn, yet beautiful, that we chastised Guam for not putting a sign off the main road pointing towards it.
In the Pacific War, waged from 1941-45, more than 500,000 Japanese lost their lives during combat on the beautiful islands scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean. In addition, many Americans, as well as local Chamorro people who had lived a peaceful life in this region, died or were wounded in the fierce battles during these disastrous years. This location, at the foot of Mt. Matagi, marked the final, fierce battle for Guam between the Japanese and the Americans. The Japanese commander committed suicide and most of his men died here. In 1965, the South Pacific Memorial Association Mission visited Guam and the Micronesian islands with the purpose of locating and paying respect to the war dead (there were still numerous casualties of the war unaccounted). The leader met with a Msgr. Calvo (same last name as current /former governors here!). The priest commented on the mournful fact that 20 yrs. later they were still finding bones of dead Japanese scattered and left in the jungle or behind rocks where they died. He wanted to collect those bones and give them a formal funeral. The Japanese leader was moved by the priest’s sincerity & they collaborated in building the memorial tower dedicating their loyalty to their respective countries and also symbolizing wishes for friendship between Japan and the USA, and world peace.
The beautiful tower was completed five years later on the very grounds where the Imperial military was forced to give up its control of Guam. There is an ossuary in its basement as a final resting place of human skeletal remains found. Its design is in the shape of palms pressed together in prayer indicating the wishes for consolation of the souls of the dead and peace for all. Its construction & maintenance expenses have been exclusively covered by donations from the Japanese.
In addition to the tower, there is the Queen of Peace chapel, which also houses artifacts that have been collected from the battleground & caves around this area. Also, several monuments, shrines and prayer sticks nearby.
To the north of the memorial, there’s a flight of concrete steps down into a large depression that contains the entrances to four large, elaborate caves (that the Japanese forced Chamorro prisoners of war to build). It was the Japanese commander’s post with a large transmitter and where he and his staff died (60 Japanese bodies found in the caves…Americans sealed them with explosives). A second flight of steps descends to a spring that provided fresh water to the Japanese.
