Memories of War: Micronesians in the Pacific War

Chapter 4. The Shock of War

44 When asked to recall the start of the war, many, perhaps most, Micronesians describe it as a surprise, a shock. People recalled that in the late 1930s the Islands were prosperous, with plentiful opportunities for wage labor, with young people, especially, busy making money, traveling, enjoying imported goods, learning the Japanese language and customs. The work and bustle simply seemed part of the economic development that peaked during the prewar decade. Islanders do not recall that the increase in construction projects held any threat at the time. Where Japanese air bases were hastily built, some locales were transformed overnight; but in other areas, prewar preparations went largely unnoticed by local populations. Docks and lighthouses were built, communication facilities updated, and roads improved; yet in seeing and even working on such projects, most Micronesians say that they did not interpret the improvements as danger signals. Some Islanders were more aware of the world situation. Elites who had greater contact with Japanese colonial officials or who had received advanced education, worked for the Japanese, or lived in town knew about the war in Asia. Urban dwellers recall local celebrations of Japanese victories in China. A few observed or even worked for the military in preparation for the December 1941 offensive, and Marshall Islanders in 1942 experienced brief Allied retaliatory bombings. But most Micronesians—especially those who lived in more remote areas, had less education, or few Japanese connections—do not remember having been warned about the possibility of war. Even if they did hear something about war in China, or the suggestion that Japan’s military actions might affect them, how could they have imagined what modern Chapter 4 THE SHOCK OF WAR the shock of war 45 Toloas, Chuuk, after the U.S. attack of April 30, 1944. (U.S. Navy photo, National Archives photo no. 80-G-227331) war meant? The overall sense of recollections of the start of the war is that its sudden onset was unexpected; certainly its ferocity, its physical reality, was unanticipated. Identifying the “start” of the war, though, is a somewhat artificial exercise. In writing a chronological study of Micronesians’ war experiences, we learned that the war did not start everywhere, for everyone, on December 7/8, 1941. Instead, we must date the war locally. In one place, people might speak of “the war starting” at Japanese celebrations marking the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Guam, and the other initial targets. Elsewhere, people speak of “the war starting ” months or years earlier, when their lands were confiscated for military construction. In the Central Carolines, “the war started” when the Japanese Army arrived in great numbers in late 1943. And some Micronesians speak of the war as “starting” only when American planes flew overhead and bombs began to fall. 46 chapter 4 MICRONESIA’S ELITES ANDTHE GLOBAL COMMENCEMENT OF WAR Sachuo Siwi’s recollections of the war’s beginnings describe the experiences of a high-status Micronesian. Mr. Siwi’s father was chief of Toloas, the headquarters island for the Japanese in Chuuk. With a good education in Japanese schools and connections with Japanese officials, Mr. Siwi was positioned to hear news about Japan’s war in China and to observe the changes in Chuuk that accompanied preparations for the start of war: I will only talk about what I can remember from the time I got out of school, until the time I grew up, until the war, until the time the war was over. . . . After I graduated [from Japanese basic schooling], for six months I just helped my father, working on our lands. My father was the chief of Toloas. His name was Nachuo. After that six months, the main office called me to work for them. I spent two years working for them on this mountain. . . . [Two years later, Governor Yamomoto] initiated the idea of having meetings at night. They were teaching the tactics which the soldiers learn for war. Men and women—Yamomoto told my father to gather men and women so he could talk to them. There was a big house over there, that’s where we had the meeting, at the government meeting house. That was when we started to learn what those soldiers taught us. We made sticks and learned to march with the sticks as though we were marching with long rifles. We learned a lot of things from the...