The Typhoon of War: Micronesian Experiences of the Pacific War

Chapter 3 THE FIRST PHASE OF WAR PREPARATIONS: Springboards for Japanese Expansion

THE ECONOMIC program of the Nan’yō-chō built up harbor, fuel, air, and communications facilities throughout the region by the mid-1930s. Late in the decade, imminent war spurred further construction—this time of offensive airbases and military infrastructure. Japanese attacks on Dutch, French, American, and British islands in the Central and Western Pacific at the end of 1941 sortied in part from installations in the Marshalls, Chuuk, Palau, and Saipan (Peattie 1988:257). This chapter and the next describe Japanese military preparations in the mandate, first using the region as a springboard for expansion and then (in chapter 4) as a defensive buffer for the homeland. This chapter also addresses how the Japanese prepared Islanders for war, as Micronesians’ lives turned increasingly away from their own concerns toward military priorities. Although the intensity and form of war preparations varied widely, we stress the similar experiences of Micronesians as offensive strategy drew them into activities supporting Japan’s advance and, later, as defensive preparations put them in the front lines. Rather than being a decade grimly foreshadowed by war, the 1930s in Micronesia held a sense of excitement and opportunity. While busy with new projects, Japanese citizens and urban Micronesians followed world events through radio and newspapers. Islanders who visited Japan on familiarization trips or for medical care returned with news. Japanese victories in Asia were celebrated in Nan’yō schools and towns, and a few Micronesian-Japanese men, such as the sons of the Mori family in Chuuk, served with the army in China. The Asian situation seemed most immediate in the western mandate. Saipan’s 33 Chapter 3 THE FIRST PHASE OF WAR PREPARATIONS Springboards for Japanese Expansion 34 chapter 3 predominantly Japanese populace followed the mainland war through two local newspapers, radios, and newsreels and obeyed orders to build bomb shelters after the start of the Sino-Japanese conflict in 1937 (Sheeks 1945). Less privileged Islanders, especially in rural areas or outlying islands, knew little of current events. Even now, many have only a slight understanding of the geopolitics behind the war in the Pacific. Few Micronesians at first connected news of growing international tensions with local activity. In Chuuk, workers dynamited Eten’s cliffs into a flat plain, but people accepted the explanation that this was to be used for drying fishnets. Chuukese contributed to a tinfoil collection drive, said to be for new currency. One Catholic missionary on Chuuk suspected signs of war mobilization by 1940 in labor conscription, higher prices for imported rice, and declining enrollment in the Catholic girls’ school as students took up family work needs (Hezel n.d.:22). But most Islanders did not read such activities as danger signals. Mandatory public work and contract labor were already familiar ; increased labor demands did not necessarily presage anything other than continuing economic growth. Sachuo Siwi, son of the Chuukese chief of Toloas who worked in the Japanese administration, recalls: “We asked them why they were building all these things and some of the kumpu [premilitary construction workers] told us that Chuuk was going to improve. They said they were building the road because big businesses from Japan were coming to Chuuk. They also said big, big buildings ten stories high that we had never seen were going to be built for the Japanese businesses that were going to come to Chuuk. But that wasn’t it. They were preparing for the war.” Perhaps the increasing regulation of daily life by local police had put Micronesians in a frame of mind that allowed the first phases of military preparation to occur with little questioning. Anko Billy recalls seeing land surveys and new construction in the Marshall Islands as a boy, but he did not realize what they meant. “I am just becoming aware of the sorts of activity they were engaging in to prepare for the battle, but I did not know it was a battle, I thought it was a development activity.” Government actions that might have seemed threatening were for many Micronesians easily offset by the greater opportunities for education, employment, higher wages, plentiful consumer goods, and a bustling regional economy. Prewar changes appear, in hindsight, as habituation for the overwhelming social and economic reorganization needed to launch and then to survive the The First Phase of War Preparations 35 war. The imperial philosophy taught in Islander elementary schools segued into nationalistic propaganda. Friendships with...