The Greatest Hardship: Micronesian Memories of World War II
Falgout, Suzanne; Poyer, Lin; Carucci, Laurence M. (1995). "The Greatest Hardship: Micronesian Memories of World War II". ISLA: A Journal of Micronesian Studies. 3 (2): 203–222. ISSN 1054-9390.
- Has attachment: File:L67HTFYJ.pdf
Abstract: The Marshall Islands, beginning in late 1943, were at the front of the Allied penetration into Japanese Micronesia. Intense and brutal, the fighting on the primary Allied strategic target islands of Majuro, Kwajalein, and Enewetak was, nevertheless, mercifully short. The Americans accomplished their main goals in the Marshalls in just over 3 weeks, and the area was considered secure within 3 months.9But the recently arrived Japanese forces on Kwajalein and Enewetak defended these islands until the very end. The atolls allowed no escape, and so the Japanese casualties were extremely high. Nearly 200 Marshallese died fighting alongside Japanese soldiers in the assault on Kwajalein. Relief to the occupied Marshall Islands quickly followed in the form of the American Navy, which brought a seemingly endless flow of supplies to their new forwarding bases (see Carucci, this volume). The next American invasion would be in June 1944, and it was thousands of miles to the west of the Marshalls, in the Northern Mariana islands of Saipan and Tinian. Needed equipment and reinforcements of Japanese soldiers bound for these islands had been destroyed en route by marauding US submarines, and so the Japanese garrisons there suffered a crushing defeat. Although most of the civilians on Saipan had been evacuated into the hills before the invasion began, nevertheless, Chamorro and Carolinian Islanders were among the one third of the civilian population who died from privation, disease, and suicide during this campaign9 (cf. Peattie, 1988; Sheeks, 1945). In addition, a few unrelocated Chamorros still living on Tinian were caught in the crossfire and died (Ballendorf, Peck, & Anderson, 1986)...
