| Kohei Ezaki (June 15, 1904 – June 27, 1963) was a Nihonga (“Japanese ink style”) painter. He interviewed veterans and created this ink-on-paper illustration in a traditional Japanese style, recalling the samurai warrior art of the 17th century. The 144th Infantry Regiment, South Seas Detachment, landed at Tumon Bay, Guam. Major General Tomitarō Horii (November 7, 1890 – November 23, 1942) was the Commanding Officer. The Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty of 1922 stipulated the maintenance of the status quo regarding fortifications and naval bases in specific areas of the Pacific. American adherence to these terms throughout the 14-year life of the treaty had the practical effect of weakening the Philippines’ defenses and preventing the development of Guam as a naval stronghold. The Hepburn Board of 1938 recommended that Guam be heavily fortified and garrisoned, but Congress failed to authorize the expenditure of the necessary funds. Unhappily, the military planners of Rainbow 5, the plan for war with Japan, had to concede the capture of the island in the 1st stages of a war with the Japanese. It was almost as if they could look over the Japanese shoulders and see the terse direction to the commander of the 4th Fleet to “invade Wake and Guam as quickly as possible” at the onset of hostilities. Guam served as a fueling station for naval vessels making the long journey to and from the Orient, a relay point for the trans-Pacific cable, the site of a naval radio station, and a stop for Pan American Clippers. Assigned to protect its 20,000 natives and its 228 square miles of rugged, jungled terrain was a token force of 153 Marines. Backing them up was a Guamanian infantry unit, the 80-man Insular Force Guard, and a volunteer native naval militia with 246 ill-armed and ill-trained members. The island’s government departments and naval station activities were manned by 271 regular Navy personnel. United States Navy Captain George J. McMillin (November 25, 1889 – August 29, 1983) was both island governor and garrison commander. The war threat was so real by October 1941 that all women and children of American citizenship were evacuated from Guam. On December 6, the garrison destroyed all its classified papers and, like other Pacific outposts, awaited the outcome of the United States-Japanese negotiations in Washington. The word came at 0545 Hours on December 8 (December 7, Pearl Harbor time). Captain McMillin was informed of the enemy attack by the Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet. In less than 3 hours, Saipan-based Japanese bombers were over the island. The initial enemy target was the mine sweeper USS Penguin (AM-33) in Apra Harbor; this small ship’s 3-inch (75 millimeter) main gun and Browning 50 caliber (12.7 millimeter) machine guns were the only weapons larger than the Browning 30 caliber (7.62 millimeter) machine guns available to the Guam garrison. Under repeated attacks, the Penguin went to the bottom, and her survivors joined the forces ashore. The attack continued throughout the daylight hours with flights of bombers hitting the various naval installations and strafing roads and villages. The island capital, Agana, was cleared of civilians, and the few local Japanese were rounded up and interned. That night, a native dugout landed near Ritidian Point on the northern cape of the island, and the 3 men in it were captured. They claimed to be Saipan natives sent over to be on hand as interpreters when the Japanese landed. These natives insisted that the Japanese intended to land the next morning, December 9, on beaches near Agana. Captain McMillin suspected a trick. He believed that by this ruse the Japanese sought to draw the Marines out of their prepared positions in the butts of the rifle range at Sumay on Orote Peninsula. He decided not to allow this information to cause a shift of his major defensive force from a position that guarded important Apra Harbor. By guess or knowledge, the Saipan natives had 1 of the landing sites located accurately, but they were off on their time. The 9th brought no landing, but the bombers came back to give Guam another pounding. The Insular Force Guard was posted to protect government buildings in Agana, but the rest of the island’s garrison remained at their assigned posts. Lieutenant Colonel William K. McNulty’s (May 22, 1892 – August 3, 1964) 122 Marines of the Sumay barracks continued to improve their rifle range defenses, and the 28 Marines who were assigned to the Insular Patrol, the island’s police force, kept their stations in villages throughout Guam. After the Japanese bombers finished for the day, all was quiet until about 0400 Hours on December 10. At that time, flares burst over Dungcas Beach north of Agana, and some 400 Japanese sailors of the 5th Defense Force from Saipan came ashore. While the naval landing party moved into Agana, where it clashed with the Insular Force Guard, elements of the Japanese South Seas Detached Force, approximately 5,500 men, including the 144th Infantry Regiment, made separate landings at Tumon Bay in the north, on the southwest coast near Merizo, and on the eastern shore of the island at Talafofo Bay. At Agana’s plaza, the lightly-armed Guamanians, commanded by Marine 1st Lieutenant Charles S. Todd (July 25, 1913 – May 22, 2004), stood off the early Japanese attacks, but their rifles and machine guns did not provide enough firePrisoner of Warer to hold against a coordinated attack by the Dungcas Beach landing force. Captain McMillin, aware of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, decided not to endanger the lives of the thousands of civilians in his charge by further and fruitless resistance. “The situation was simply hopeless,” he later related. He surrendered the island to the Japanese naval commander shortly after 0600 Hours and sent orders to the Marines at Sumay not to resist. The word did not reach all defenders, however, and scattered fighting continued throughout the day as the enemy spread out to complete the occupation of the island. But this amounted to only token resistance. United States Marine Private 1st Class John W. Kauffman Junior (January 5, 1922 – December 10, 1941) was bayoneted to death for mouthing off to a Japanese guard after the surrender. There was no chance that the determined Japanese might be driven off by a force so small, even if the defenders could have regrouped. Guam had fallen, and it would be 2 1/2 years before the United States was in a position to win it back. During the 2 days of bombing and in the fighting in December, the total garrison losses were 19 killed and 42 wounded, including 4 Marines killed and 12 wounded. The civilian population suffered comparable but undetermined casualties. The Japanese evacuated American members of the garrison to prison camps in Japan on January 10, 1942, and the Japanese naval force that had been present at the surrender settled down to duty as occupation troops. After a 5-day sea voyage, the prisoners arrived at the island of Shikoku and were imprisoned at Zentsuji, where they remained until they were transferred in June 1942 to Osaka on Honshu. 1st Sergeant Earl B. Ercanbrack (July 28, 1912 – August 19, 1995), as senior Marine noncommissioned officer of the Guam men, became camp leader at Osaka from the date of their capture until October, when Japanese Army authorities turned the Prisoners of War over to the tender mercies of civilian guards and work supervisors. Until that time, the Marines were treated fairly. Although the Marines were assigned to heavy manual labor both at Osaka and Zentsuji, none of the men felt that the “work was unfair or the treatment other than just and honorable.” This situation changed after the middle of October when the Prisoners of War were treated “as criminals, subjected to ridicule and humiliation, and…suffered cruel and unjust punishment without opportunity to offer protest or seek justice.” Some of the Guam prisoners believed that it was not entirely proper to work so hard for the enemy, and a number of the Prisoners of War at “Osaka formed a somewhat informal, loose group or faction who felt that it was our duty to slow down the National (Jap[anese]) War Effort. We never seemed to properly understand the Jap guards, we stumbled, spilled bags, caused minor damage, and bettered our own morale, but did little real damage to their war effort.” In October 1942, 80 men of the Osaka camp were called out of formation, advised that they had been observed by prison authorities, who had decided that the Americans were non-cooperative and therefore to be transferred to a more severe camp. “So this group, half Marines and half Navy (known thereafter as the ‘Eighty Eight Balls’) were sent to Hirohata to work as stevedores shoveling coal and iron ore at Seitetsu Steel Mills.” In April 1945, Osaka was raided by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses on April 13, 1945. The primary target in this raid was the dock area, where the Guam prisoners worked daily. When the bombs began falling, the Marines were herded into a brick and wood warehouse at the edge of the harbor, and once they were in this building, the steel doors were slammed shut and barred from the outside. Soon, some incendiary bombs landed on the roof of the fire trap and set the building ablaze. Climbing up a wall of human bodies to reach a small ledge at the base of the rafters, 1 Marine managed to break a window and drop the 20 feet to the street outside. He then grabbed an iron bar that was close by and pried the warehouse door open. At the end of the hour, when the raid was over, the Prisoners of War marched back to Osaka Prisoner of War Camp 1, and all that remained of their former barracks was the cinder foundation. For most of the prisoners in Japanese camps, the end came suddenly and without warning. 1 day, they were under close guard and subjected to all forms of harassment, and the next, all was quiet, and they were given food and medicine, which up to that time had been withheld from them. By the early morning of August 30, all of the men at Shinagawa, together with the entire prison population at Omori, had been evacuated. Each Prisoner of War was taken on board the hospital ship USS Benevolence (AH-13) and put through a clearing and examination process. This procedure, which most of the prisoners liberated from Japan experienced before their trip home, involved a bath, medical examination, and an issue of clean clothes. They were then fed and afterwards filled out a mimeographed form which requested information about camp conditions and instances of brutality. Following this, the RAMPs were assigned to a bed in the hospital ship, or, if ambulatory, transferred to billets on a fast transport alongside of the hospital ship. During the night of the 30th, the CTG 30.6 staff evaluated the mass of information it had received from the Recovered Allied Military Personnel (RAMPs) about the location of other Prisoner of War camps. As a result of this intelligence, the evacuation unit was divided into 2 separate groups in order to expand overall operations. The United States assumed the responsibility for the evacuation of all liberated prisoners and civilians from Japan to either Manila or Guam, and from Guam to the States, using both surface and air transportation. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1498.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.16 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 4212 x 2959 |
| Photographer | Kohei Ezaki |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | December 10, 1941 |
| Location | |
| City | Tumon Bay |
| State or Province | Guam |
| Country | Marianas |
| Archive | National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo |
| Record Number | X00007 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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