A Little History

I am slow in posting these but I wanted to post some of the pictures that my Dad took when he was here on Guam in World War II. After the Marines landed, there was not much left of the villages. A neighbor told us that a lot of the development on Guam has happened over the last 10 years. She was comparing Guam to what the other islands are like now - much less commercialism. There are a few places that Dad took pictures of in 1945 that still stand today. I will do the now and then thing with those pictures.

This is a picture of my parents when Dad was in the service.

This is their picture today, they look pretty good don't they.



This is a picture of the plane that he was Crew Chief on. If you look at the name on the plane you will see that my Dad is the one that named it. Luella Jean is my mother.


















These were some of the bombed out buildings in Agana.





This is the the remains of a Spanish fort. As you can see, the watchtower has not changed much in 66 years. Can't say the same for my Dad.










Caribao's were used for transportation and for work. Today they are just a tourist attraction.











Housing on the base consisted of tents or crude structures that could be erected quickly. Today, the base has nice concrete housing.












I think that this was a little store or something like that on the base. Today, there are beautiful new buildings for the commissary and base exchange.











This was one of the beaches then. Today, hotels line the only really good stretches of beach.













Umatac Bay.

















This is a monument marking the bay where Magellan landed. When Dad was stationed here the plaque on it had been removed and so he did not really know what it was. He now has "the rest of the story".




This is Talafofo Bay. In the old photo you can see a sunken Japanese ship. The ship is still there but you have to be diving to see it.











These are not the same ruins but I wanted to show that they have preserved some of the old ruins. The one on the right happens to be from the old Spanish Government
complex.











Example of housing for the villagers at that time.

This was a military cemetary. It no longer exists. The bodies were all sent home.

More native housing.

This is not my Dad but it will give you an idea of what he looked like every day. He was super thin and wore nothing but shorts all day long. His dermatologist claims that his time serving on Guam is the cause of all his skin cancers. I will attest to the fact that the sun is different here. The minute you walk outside it practically blinds you and it just feels HOTTER.

This shows someones ingenuity. Try to picture this as a washing machine. They would start the engine on a plane behind it, the blast would turn the "propeller" and that would turn a paddle in the barrel. Clever, huh!

How can you get this many men together and not have some kind of games going on? We believe this field is the one that was across the street from where we lived when we first came to Guam. It is still a playing field and is used quite a bit.

It was really fun to look through Dad's photo album and compare then and now. It is wonderful that he was able to take so many pictures and that he still has them. The best part was that he had labeled them. How many pictures do we all have that we have not written anything on them? Years go by and then we forgot what they were. This is a plug for all you photographers. Label, label, label.