Forward, Handbook TTPI 1948
Background
"Forward" is a section from Chapter One, "General Introduction," in the Handbook of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 1948, published by the United States Navy.
Forward
This handbook is designed to provide a comprehensive survey of the United States trust territory of the Pacific islands, and especially of administrative policies and activities in the postwar period, first under military government by the United States Navy, and then as a strategic trusteeship under naval administration. It is also planned to serve as a training manual for civil administration personnel.
The handbook has been prepared at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, by the staff of the School of Naval Administration, together with additional naval and civil staff members drawn in for the purpose. The Stanford School of Naval Administration, established in April 1946 by the university under contract with the Navy, has had the task of training naval officers for administrative duty in the trust territory was well as Guam and American Samoa. Its resident staff, together with the members of the second and third classes of officer trainees, began making drafts for this handbook from March 1947, as an adjunct to the training program. In October 1947 the project was given impetus through financial participation of the Office of Naval Research, the Training Division, Bureau of Naval Personnel, and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. In addition to this general handbook, which stands on its own, six regional handbooks are also in preparation giving more detailed information on the seven main administrative zones of the trust territory: Northern Marianas (Saipan), Palaus, Truk, Ponape, Yap, Majuro, and Kwajalein (Marshalls).
All workers on the project have been intimately associated with island affairs, as being connected with the SONA (School of Naval Administration) program and as having been, in nearly all instances administrative officers in the islands since the war. Included were Reserve officers who have professional training in geography, education, and other specialized fields. The method used in preparation of the text has been somewhat unique in applied research. The first draft was made at an academic center which has the necessary library facilities and is also a repository for official documents relating to the islands (the SONA library). When additional information was needed it was obtained by official or unofficial correspondence with scientific specialists or with the administrative staffs currently in the islands, nearly all of whom are SONA graduates already familiar with the project. Furthermore, as drafts were completed, they were sent to key personnel within the administration for checking and for suggestions as to revision. A new draft has then been made, which has the double check of both academic and practical validity.
Various earlier studies on these islands were prepared under naval and other auspices before their occupation by the United States. These, however, have limited value today as having been based only upon such information as could be obtained from German, Japanese, and other sources then available. Notable among them were four handbooks issued by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations on the Marshall Islands, East Caroline Islands, West Caroline Islands, and mandated Marianas Islands (OPNAV P22 (formerly 50E), 1, 5, 7, and 8). These handbooks were prepared under the direction of Dr. G. P. Murdock of Yale University. This new handbook does not attempt to repeat in full the valuable materials assembled in them on traditional customs and on the Japanese administrative system and other prewar conditions. Occasional summaries have been included here, and frequent cross-references are made. This new handbook lays stress rather upon conditions in the postwar period, and upon the great body of new materials now available, nearly all unpublished.
The information presented has been drawn from four main sources: (1) official documents of military government and civil administration under Navy auspices, (2) documentation of the former United States Commercial Company which conducted the trading operations in the islands until 31 December 1947, (3) findings of scientists who have been studying in the area under official or private auspices, and (4) personal knowledge on the part of those compiling the handbook, supplemented by very extensive materials secured in personal interviews and by correspondence with administrative officers and other persons informed on current conditions.
Emphasis has been given, on the side of official documentation, to the policy directives which have been developed since the war, especially those now current, and also to recent official reports of the administrative staffs up to 31 December 1947. In the other categories an outstanding source is a series of unpublished studies by a group of scientists sent into the islands by the United States Commercial Company in the summer of 1946 to make a general survey of conditions and needs in economic and related fields. These United States Commercial Company economic survey studies will be drawn on directly or in summary form at a number of points, selecting, however, only those materials which are most useful for general understanding; the highly technical information they contain on geology, botany, entomology, etc., is considered to be outside the scope of such a handbook. An additional body of scientific materials of major proportions is currently being made available through the reports of scholars who are working in the islands under the auspices of the Pacific Science Board, with financial and other aid from the Navy: Notably some 40 anthropologists taking part in its CIMA (coordinated investigation of Micronesian anthropology) project. For the purposes of this handbook, however, only a limited number of preliminary reports has been available for scrutiny by the compilers.
