Personal Histories of World War II in the Marianas

This series is presented by the CNMI Museum of History and Culture for the 60th Anniversary Commemoration of the Battles for Saipan and Tinian.

A MESSENGER BOY’S STORY

My father’s name was Jose Palacios Sablan. He was born in 1905 and during the Japanese times he worked for the Japanese post office. He died when I was five years old, so I don’t remember much about him. My mother was a housewife and a seamstress. She would take orders from both Chamorros and Japanese and work at home. She had five children before my father died. I was the oldest. I started going to the Japanese school in 1936 and finished the fifth grade. I did fine in school. In spite of all the talk about Japanese discipline, as long as you followed the rules you were fine. The only time you were punished was when you violated the rules and regulations.

When I graduated from school in 1942 I was very fortunate. I was asked by my teacher if I would like to work for the Japanese police as a messenger. There were two other boys who were also asked. Their names were Jose Tenorio and Jesus Salas. All three of us worked as messengers for the Japanese police from August 1942 until June 15, 1944. The one Japanese policeman I remember best was Mr. Hirasawa. He survived the battle, and has visited Saipan twice since then. I have never met anyone nicer than this individual. When he was on duty he would call us in to talk and joke around. He survived the battle and the Americans made him chief of security for the Japanese being held at Camp Susupe. You see, we had over 90,000 people on Saipan before the war. But you know something, we had only two police officers on night duty at any one time. One stayed in the office, and one walked his beat in the whole Garapan area. That is how disciplined the people were before the war. People were afraid to commit any crimes.

As messengers for the police department we were given bicycles. You know, if you didn’t have a bicycle you couldn’t go any place. Even given the small size of Saipan, before the war if you didn’t have transportation you hardly knew your neighbors. We had a house in Garapan but the Japanese occupied it when they started bringing in troops. My mother had to take the rest of the family to our farm in Fina Sisu in the Aslito area of Saipan. I stayed in Garapan with the Japanese police. Even before this, when I started working for the Japanese police we had a room where we slept at the police station. After my family was moved out of Garapan I didn’t see them until after the battle. I was worried, but what could I do?

About two weeks before the Americans invaded Saipan, the Japanese started evacuating their wives and children to Japan. I was at the police station in February 1944 when the Americans first bombed Saipan. I learned a couple of days later that the sugar refinery was hit hard. I knew then that there was a war going on between the Japanese and the Americans. I heard these things. I didn’t ask, I just heard them. That was one thing about the Japanese times—you never asked questions. I also heard the police talking about some Americans in a rubber boat who were picked up in the Talofofo area and brought to the jail. I got on my bicycle and rode down to the jail house. This truck pulled up. There were four Americans. They were blindfolded, and their hands were tied behind their backs. They were white and extraordinarily big. Their hair was gold. At first I didn’t even know they were Americans. We went back to the jail about a week later and they were gone. An old Japanese man there told us that the Americans were sent to Japan.

Later the Japanese brought in two more American pilots. I think it was about a week before the Americans invaded Saipan on June 15. We heard rumors that they had been brought here from Truk Lagoon. When we heard about this we decided to go to the jail and take a look. We sneaked in and we saw the two Americans in two different cells. One was sitting in the corner holding his stomach as if he were in pain. The other one was just walking around the cell, smiling and talking. Of course, we didn’t know what he was saying. He got shot in the arm; he showed us the wound.

Joe Tenorio was always carrying money. So Joe says, “Let’s get some bread and give it as a gift to the American.” However, when we came back that night with the bread, one of the guards saw what we were going to do and told us not to. There was another prisoner at the jail who was from Palau. We met with him in the hills several days later. When the Americans started shelling Garapan, all of the prisoners were let out. He told us that the Americans had died. The roof came down on one of them during the shelling, and the other one was beheaded by one of the Japanese.

The police station was in Garapan just above where the Kristo Rai Church is now. During the bombing we hid in a manmade cave behind the police station. When we came out of the cave that evening, not a building was standing. That was when Joe Tenorio suggested that we head for the mountains. So we just took off. We didn’t tell anybody. First we went to a place called Fanaganan (near what is called Navy Hill today). However, once we got there we decided to split up because my mother and her family were in the Aslito area, and Jesus Salas’ family was in Chalan Kanoa (southwest end of the island, where the Marines landed). Joe’s parents were in Tanapag (northwest end of the island). I told Joe to go find his parents, and Jesus and I left together to find our families. Jesus and I got as far as Iliyang (south of Garapan) and couldn’t go any further because fuel storage tanks were burning all over. So that same evening we went back to Fanaganan, then to Chalan Galaide (near Mt. Tapochau). Along the way there was a lot of shelling, and sometimes we had to hit the ground.

From Chalan Galaide we decided to move to the Santa Lourdes area (east of the island), and that is where we ran into Joe again. I couldn’t get to Aslito from that side of the island either. The whole area was burning. So we decided to walk to Tanapag and look for Joe’s parents. There were a lot of Japanese soldiers going in the same direction. We managed to get to Tanapag and find Joe’s mother and grandfather. Then we all walked back to Santa Lourdes that same night. We didn’t want to stay in Tanapag because there were fuel tanks burning up there. We stayed in some caves at Santa Lourdes for about two weeks. Then the Americans started bombing the area, so that night we walked to Talofofo (northeast coast).

On the way to Talofofo we saw dead people all over the place. When we got there we couldn’t find any caves to hide in, so we decided to start digging in the ground. We had no shovels, no picks, just a machete. So we cut some wood and used that as picks. We dug into a slope—all of us, and finally we dug enough for ten or fifteen people. We were fortunate because my father’s cousin, Gregorio Sablan, was with us and he could speak English. We had only sugar cane to eat while we were there, and we surrendered on that spot on July 4, 1944. I’ll never forget that date. There was a lot of shooting in the area the night before we surrendered. But the following day it was so quiet; not a noise. A Japanese soldier passed by and said, “The Americans are coming!” He took off, and we just waited. We could see the Americans, but they couldn’t see us. Someone yelled to Mr. Sablan, “There are some Americans outside!” He finally came out and said something in English. We put up a white flag—not a white flag, just a piece of cloth on a stick—and we all went out. The Marines surrounded us, I guess to make sure we didn’t have any weapons. We were pretty lucky to have someone with us who could speak English. Everybody was searched—I mean, everybody except the women. We had to wait there probably an hour, then they brought trucks up for us. They took us all directly to Camp Susupe.

In Camp Susupe I couldn’t find my mother even though she had been picked up earlier. That was the most difficult thing for me, not being able to find my mother. Even when I was in the caves, I was thinking about my mother and my brothers all the time, more than anything else. Camp Susupe was big and we weren’t authorized to walk around. I found my mother maybe a week later. I was so happy. Everybody was so happy. We hugged and cried. I don’t remember what we said. It was hard in Camp Susupe. There really wasn’t much of a place to sleep. Some of us men had to sleep on the ground with just a blanket, but under a tent. We hadn’t eaten anything in two weeks except for some sugar cane, and you would think that you could eat a whole pot of whatever, but after just a few bites you became full; you couldn’t eat anymore. I was in Camp Susupe from July to October 1944, hauling water to the camp using a bull cart and five-gallon cans. I did that until October 24. That is something I can’t forget.

October 24 is when I started working at the 369th Station Hospital in San Vicente. They needed locals to help with the patients, mop the floors, and go up to the galley and haul food for the patients. We washed the patients and helped the nurses with the bandages. Some of the patients were very badly wounded. We were taking care of wounded soldiers from Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They were all brought here. We worked from five o’clock in the morning until seven o’clock in the evening, sometimes later. We were paid $10 a month, but we appreciated it. We were fed there, and given a place to sleep. One Sunday a month we were driven to Chalan Kanoa to see our families. But I enjoyed it. That is where I started to learn English.

The bad thing about Japanese times was that if you didn’t have employment, if you didn’t have property to farm, you were in big trouble. But the good thing was that we Chamorros helped one another. In other words, if you had a neighbor who needed help you had to help him even if you weren’t related. So people survived because of that. One of the good things about the Japanese times was that you knew what not to do. The system was so rigid, so strict, you could not afford to make a mistake, knowing the consequences.

(Excerpted from “Messenger Boy for the Japanese Police,” by Manuel T. Sablan, in Bruce M. Petty, Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War. Published in 2002 by McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London. Used by permission of Mr. Sablan and Mr. Petty.)