| Original caption: “Marines try to soothe a crying child by offering a shiny rations tin. Children are sheltered with their families in a camp set up for refugees from battle areas by United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs authorities on Saipan.” Original caption: “The Situation Definitely Isn’t Well in Hand – There’s desperation in the face of this Marine as he summons all his tact and resourcefulness to persuade a little Jap[anese] youngster to ‘dry them tears.’ The husky fighting man plainly would prefer to tackle an enemy machine gun nest over meeting this crisis at Saipan. The picture, made by a Coast Guard combat photographer, shows an enclosure set up by the American invaders to safeguard Japanese women and children on the battle-swept Marianas island.” Original caption: “This little Jap[anese] is in a concentration camp for civilians on the island of Saipan. It seems to be a nudist camp, too, but in this mild mid-Pacific climate, clothes are not really necessary. The soldiers are trying hard to overcome his shyness and timidity, but his tears keep flowing.” At Camp Susupe, the Japanese internment facility on Saipan, 2 American Marines and an interpreter – possibly Chamorro, named Mike (note his 2nd scabbard) comfort a crying Japanese girl (judging by the style of haircut) by offering candy. Other Japanese children laugh. The summer heat and the recent combat caused many children to run around naked. The Japanese invaded Saipan, a German colony, in 1916 and began importing Korean and Japanese laborers. In 1944, 30,000 civilians lived on Saipan: 25,000 Japanese, mostly from Okinawa, whom the Americans referred to as the Liuchiu Islands; 2,000 Koreans; and 3,000 Chamorro and Carolinian natives. The Kinrohoshi (“voluntary labor”) increased after the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and able-bodied men worked a day each week “for the Emperor” on air raid shelters, defensive works, and other military projects. Strict clothing rationing and the many paramilitary organizations meant that many men, and some women, wore khaki uniforms that looked very much like Imperial Japanese Army uniforms, with devastating consequences for civilians during the battle. In March 1944, virtually all civilian work ceased, and everyone focused on building trenches, food and ammunition shelters, and a new airfield. Garapan was evacuated, and the population moved into the hills. Every other street was condemned, and the houses were torn down to use the materials for military construction. The remaining dwellings became a dispersed barracks area. 3,000 civilians attempted to escape by ship, but some drowned when their transports were torpedoed. The Battle of Saipan was the 1st time the United States encountered a large civilian population in the Pacific War during an amphibious operation. American Command believed the propaganda that the Japanese were fanatically loyal to the Emperor and would not surrender. Incidents on Guadalcanal and other islands where the Japanese feigned surrender, only to blow themselves up when they got close to Americans, made commanders wary of attempts to entice the Japanese to give up. So, no formal policy for mass surrender or civil administration for a civilian population was envisioned. The Americans had several individuals who spoke Japanese who had assigned duties that did not include trying to convince the Japanese to surrender. United States Marine 2nd Lieutenant Robert B. Sheeks (April 8, 1922 – July 4, 2022) paid for jeep-mounted speakers out of the 2nd Marine Division recreation budget and got the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper to print surrender instructions in Japanese. Instead of “surrender,” Sheeks tried “come out.” Marine Command believed the Japanese would refuse. Instead, 10 Japanese responded to his pleas. The surrendered Prisoners of War indicated that single Japanese soldiers were more likely to surrender than groups of soldiers, and many more leaflets were needed. United States Marine Private Guy L. Gabaldon (March 22, 1926 – August 31, 2006) talked directly to Japanese military personnel and officers, convincing them to surrender. After the mass gyokusai (literally “shattered jewels” – Americans called it a “Banzai” charge) of July 7, more civilians surrendered. No provision was made for the erection of shelters for civilians, or for their medical care: “Military government was still a relatively new concept, and it was difficult to secure the proper support…As a result, the experience of military government on Saipan was not a pleasant one.” There was a “natural difference of viewpoint between the forces trying to conquer or annihilate enemy personnel and destroy all property which might be used by the enemy and forces trying to conserve property which might be beneficial to the alien enemy civilian population.” This was a “war without preparation” when it came to the care of civilians. Japanese propaganda was also powerfully successful in convincing Japanese civilians not to surrender – death was the only option. Japanese soldiers killed their own people. Even without soldiers present, Japanese parents would kill their own children and their spouses, often cutting their throats; children would be bayoneted. Japanese soldiers had children in circles throw live grenades like balls. All of this was made easier by Japanese notions of honour relating to surrender that civilians as well as soldiers seem to have imbibed. In the end, some 10 to 12,000 of the 20 to 30,000 civilians on the island died, including almost a 1,000 Chamorros and Carolinians. How many committed suicide as opposed to dying as “collateral damage” – to use the awful euphemism – in the battle is not clear. Still, the suicides at Marpi Point, while dramatic and recorded by American film crews, probably did not claim as many civilian lives as were lost in combat. The Marpi Point suicides are the traditional story of the tragedy of the civilians of Saipan, buttressed by accounts of honorable Marines and Army soldiers trying to avoid needless suffering, and who were horrified by the carnage not just at the cliffs, but at the many caves that they came across, full of dead civilians, as they pressed north up Saipan. But the Americans were also responsible for civilian deaths, if inadvertently. American troops approaching a cave complex had the choice of entering to find out who was hidden inside, attempting to negotiate the occupants’ surrender, or using a flamethrower or satchel charge to deal with the problem before moving on to the next minor battle. Many marines and soldiers, especially after July 9, when tempers calmed, used verbal persuasion. Still, without their speaking Japanese, there was no way the civilians would know what was being said to them. Verbal persuasion was also time-consuming. An American serviceman had to choose between risking his life going into a cave, leaving the cave, which could be full of soldiers who could later emerge and attack the Americans from the back, or using blunt force and killing everyone inside. Unsurprisingly, the preferred tactical method was to “seal” the cave, another euphemism that meant death for those inside. Before the battle had even ended, compounds for civilians were created in June 1944. Chamorro and Carolinian peoples were interned in Area 1, Koreans in Area 2, and Japanese and Okinawans in Area 3 within Camp Susupe. Area 1 was eventually located in Camp Chalan Kanoa, newly established as an annex of Camp Susupe in November 1944. The United States military thereby reversed the racial order that had existed under Japanese rule, positioning Chamorro and Carolinians at the top, and giving some a certain mobility through service as camp guards to surveil Asian internees. Meanwhile, Japanese and Okinawans were merged into a single category, “Japanese enemy nationals,” placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. More than 70 percent of incarcerated Japanese on Saipan believed they would be tortured. About the same number were frightened when they were captured. While 80 percent believed the United States was more powerful industrially, only 8 percent believed the Americans would win, and 45 percent were not sure. More than half thought the Imperial Japanese Navy was the most powerful in the world. 40 percent thought the Emperor controlled the Japanese Government, and the same percentage (but not necessarily the same people) thought he didn’t favor the war. Only 7 percent favored a democratic government. 80 percent got their news from newspapers or the radio. Japanese women were especially fecund; American Marines, all men, had no idea how to treat children, let alone how to assist in childbirth. Medics did not receive any training in assisting with childbirth. Initially, deaths of babies and new mothers at Camp Susupe and Camp Chalan Kanoa were very high. An emergency appeal for needed equipment – 1st, what equipment would be needed? – and then supplies were flown to Saipan. Female nurses were offered the opportunity to fly to Saipan, but the offer was declined due to ongoing combat. Midwives radioed instructions to male medics on Saipan instead. For the Tinian, Guam, and Okinawa invasions, the equipment was part of the medical operations list. Naval Civil Affairs included personnel expected to assist in childbirth. War correspondent William L. Worden reported on Camp Susupe’s children in the Washington Post on July 23, 1944: “The children, of course, are more friendly than their elders and many already have made great strides in understanding their conquerors. But the Yanks have discovered that candy and other sweet foods speak a universal language. Setting up their cameras to record pictorially the record of the Marine Civil Affairs Internment Camp on newly won Saipan, the Leathernecks found—just as they would in the United States-that youngsters were “in their hair” all the time, crowding around them to watch what most of them had never observed before. Most of the orders given to adults and the efforts to get children to play are directed by motions, although, while the fighting was still in progress, pamphlets printed in the native tongue were distributed.” A shortwave broadcast from Tokyo, admitting losses in Iwo Jima and the Philippines, stunned the Japanese internees, claimed the Associated Press in a nationally syndicated article on March 16, 1945. After camp gossip spread quickly, there was silence as the realization that the Imperial Japanese Navy’s fleet would not be returning to liberate them. On July 19, 1945, in a nationally syndicated article, Associated Press reporter Bonnie Wiley wrote that Camp Susupe had 13,000 Japanese nationals, 80 percent of whom were Okinawans, and 1,368 Koreans. Camp Chalan Kanoa had 2,463 Chamorros and 862 Carolinians. 40 percent were children. Japanese, Koreans, and Chamorros were in separate camps because “they are not on too good speaking terms.” Wiley reported that the Japanese believed that they would win the war. “When we first got them,” Wiley reported that the Susupe Camp Director, United States Army Colonel Arthur C. Huston Junior (May 28, 1897 – May 21, 1959), of Palo Alto, California, told her, “they were undernourished, frightened, hunted. Today, you can see for yourself how healthy and fat the children are, how general health has improved.” The Associated Press reporter wrote that the 2 most prevalent diseases among the Japanese are tuberculosis and intestinal parasites. 95 percent of the residents had worms, and the entire population was treated. A Japanese doctor and 26 medics assisted American medical personnel. Camp personnel earned 35 to 50 cents a day ($6.44 to $9.20 in 2025 dollars) working for the United States armed forces. Fishing, farming, and craftwork also earned money for the camp. Wiley wrote, “The Susupe refugees comply tractably with orders, down to the naked little boys and girls who follow camp visitors around like eager little puppies, grinning and yelling, ‘Hey, candy, Hey, candy.’ The Japanese women respond to kindness, officials say, but most men sneer at it and call it ‘American weakness.’” The camp residents were given canned rations, which developed into the Chamorro love of spam. At Camp Susupe and Camp Chalan Kanoa, the United States military coerced both Native and Asian civilian internees to labor under economic rehabilitation policies in the Northern Marianas Islands. The military regularly counted and recorded interned populations as a potential labor force, and employed most of the able-bodied men and around half of the able-bodied women at the camps. Although the United States military claimed that the labor of civilian internees was voluntary, it enacted policies that compelled civilians to work to increase and secure the labor pool. Workers were provided with 3 meals a day, while non-workers were given only 2 meals. Interned women were also at risk of sexual violence by American soldiers, especially at night and at their workplace. According to Estella Magofna Pangelinen (born February 26, 1939), a Chamorro woman who survived the war, “While we stayed there [Susupe], the soldiers came and started trying to rape the families. If they saw a lady, they would come at night and try to get her. That’s why they started fencing the place where the islanders were—they put a fence around it.” Although the United States military claimed to be liberating the Northern Marianas Islands from Japanese rule, the internment of the local people, both native and Japanese, continued for 2 years after the battles had ended. 80 years later, the Chamorros are glad the Americans invaded when they did – a year later, they feel the defenses of the Northern Marianas Islands would be comparable to that of Iwo Jima and civilian, American, and Japanese casualties would be much worse. In early 1946, the United States military repatriated Japanese and Okinawans, as well as Koreans to some extent, to Japan, Okinawa, and Korea, respectively. Chamorro and Carolinians, meanwhile, were finally released from Chalan Kanoa on July 4, 1946, a day which they have since remembered as “Liberation Day.” Photographer Ted C. Needham (Nov. 17, 1918 – Sept. 17, 2007) interrupted his 40-year career at the San Francisco Examiner to join the United States Coast Guard during World War II. He was photographed wearing a kimono with a parasol, holding a Japanese machine gun, on Saipan. He landed at Saipan, Angaur, Leyte, and Luzon. His photos appeared in LIFE Magazine after the war. He worked for the San Jose Mercury News at the end of his career. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1523.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.06 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 2452 x 2944 |
| Photographer | Ted C. Needham |
| Photographer Title | United States Coast Guard |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | July 15, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Camp Suisupe |
| State or Province | Saipan |
| Country | Marianas |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-26-G-2528 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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