Bye bye Guam and Saipan

 I never realized how much of WWII was played out in the Pacific Theater.  So much for my world history classes. Both Guam and Saipan were very important strategic islands in fighting against the Japanese.  The thousands of lives lost is absolutely staggering.  The brutality of it all and all the memorial parks here commemorating the victims and saying’never again’ and peace must prevail. But then we look at what is happening now and realize that we have very short memories and everything is repeating itself. 

So these 2 islands are basically military bases. Guam is a US territory and Saipan is a US Commonwealth like Pennsylvania, Virginia etc.  A Commonwealth has a constitution and greater control over internal affairs than a territory. They are both very small islands, but it took us 8 hours each day to cover all the military sites and of course have beautiful, delicious buffet lunches at different resorts. Saipans beaches had gorgeous seashells that we were not allowed to takes as they were protected natural habitats. Boo hoo. 

Part of the Japanese jail where it is believed that Emilia Earhart may have spent some time. The theory is that she crash landed on another Mariana island called Tinian and somehow got to Saipan 

One of many preserved Japanese bunkers.