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War in the Pacific
Administrative History |
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Appendix 4:
HISTORIES OF UNITS OF THE PARK
The source of this timeline is Russell A. Apple, Guam: Two Invasions and Three Military Occupations, Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam, 1980.
| Asan Beach Unit (This is the area at Asan on the lagoon side of Marine Drive.) | |
| 1892 — 1900 | Leprosy colony |
| 1901 — 1903 | Prisoner camp for Philippine rebels |
| 1917 | Prisoner of War camp. From April 6 through April 30, 289 members of the crew of the German cruiser Cormoran was held here. |
| 1922 | USMC used this area as a quartermaster depot, barracks and small arms firing range. |
| 1944 | Japanese defensive positions were placed on top of and on both sides of Asan and Adelup points. A 1979 NPS survey listed twenty-two surviving Japanese defensive structures. |
| 1945 — 1947 | First Camp Asan. Used for open storage. Forty-one quonset huts and other buildings were arranged in rows. The flat area between Asan Point ridge and Asan River was filled with white coral sand and there was no grass or other vegetation. |
| 1948 — 1967 | Second Camp Asan. Housing for civilian employees of the navy. The camp included sixteen two-story barracks, an outdoor theater, a chapel, a club, softball fields, tennis courts, a basketball court, an administration building, a mess hall, a fire station, concrete sidewalks, and paved parking areas. |
| 1968 — 1972 | Buildings previously used for civilian employee housing were convered by the navy into a four- hundred-bed regional military hospital for use during the Vietnam War. These medical facilities were abandoned in 1972. |
| 1975 | Vietnamese refugee camp. At any one time, this camp held between 5,000 and 6,000 refugees. The refugee camp existed only a few months, it was discontinued in December 1975. |
| 1976 | Supertypoon Pamela destroyed all buildings except the fire station. Navy bulldozers removed the rubble. |
Asan Inland Unit (This is the area at Asan on the inland side of Marine Drive.) | |
| 1945 — 1947 | Three very large quonset huts were here. They were used for bowling and other recreation. Probably continued to be used during the second Camp Asan and possibly even by the Navy Hospital. Supertyhpoon Pamela probably destroyed them. Concrete pads were still visible in 1980. |
| 1945 | A tank farm (Asan Tank Farm) occupied both the ridge and the adjacent valley. A fire on August 22, 1948, severely damaged the facility. It had been abandoned by 1953. The tank farm consisted of three 10,000-barrel tanks and three 80,000-barrel tanks plus a pipline, pump station and administration buildings. The last of it was removed in 1968. A portion of this unit, the portion fronting Marine Drive on the Agana side of the bowling alley, was intensively cultivated for rice as late as 1939. |
| 1945 — 1947 | The Asan Military Cemetery was located inland of Marine Drive, on the Piti side of the Asan River. Marines killed during the invasion were buried here initially. Their remains were disinterred in 1947 and moved to cemeteries on the U. S. mainland or Hawaii. Bundshu Ridge is in this unit. The ridge was named for Captain Geary R. Bundshu, USMC, who died on the ridge on invasion day. |
Piti Unit | |
| 1909 — 1932 | Below the ridge on the Philippine Sea side, there was the Guam Agricultural Experiment Station occupied the ridge and the slope on the Philippine Sea side from 1909 to 1932. |
| 1932 — 1940 | The Guam Agricultural Experiment Station was converted into an agricultural school in 1932, and remained a school until 1940. The mahogany trees just below the ridge are the only physical evidence remaining of this school and the Agricultural Experiment Station that preceded it.. |
| 1944 | Japanese artillery units began to install three large guns on the westward-facing slope. Installation was not finished and the guns were never fired. |
Mt. Tenjo — Mt. Chachao Unit | |
| 1915 | The United States built the ridge road connecting Mt. Tenjo and Mt. Chachao to enable them to install three seven-inch coastal defense guns. The guns were removed in 1931 |
| 1944 | This ridge was part of the forward beachhead line set by the Americans for their landing. |
Agat Unit | |
| Pre-1940 | There was a major rice-growing area along the approximately one-half mile-wide strip of land inland from the beach; it also had a dense grove of coconut trees. Old Agat had a pre-World War II population of approximately 791. |
| 1944 | American naval and air bombardment destroyed all of Agat. |
| 1944 — 1945 | This site was used by the Americans as a refugee camp for Guamanian refugees immediately after the American landing. The number of refugees in this camp reached 6,689 at one time. |
Mt. Alifan Unit | |
| 1944 | This was the most fortified and armed Japanese defense point. It had a three-gun battery, infantry trenches, a fire-control center, and observation post. |
Fonte Plateau Unit | |
| 1944 | This area contained a number of Japanese bunkers and caves, tunnels and trenches. Nimitz Hill is in this unit. |
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Last Updated: 08-May-2005