{"id":198525,"date":"2015-04-07T04:00:01","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T18:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=198525"},"modified":"2015-04-07T04:00:01","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T18:00:01","slug":"chaguian-massacre-site-disputed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chaguian-massacre-site-disputed\/","title":{"rendered":"Chagui\u2019an massacre site disputed"},"content":{"rendered":"

HAGATNA, Guam<\/strong> (AP)\u2014The Guam Preservation Trust is determined to put the Chagui\u2019an Massacre site in Yigo into the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s disagreement about the exact location of the site, however.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 8, 1944, Marine Corps patrols from the 21st Regiment discovered 45 bodies of young Chamorro men in Chagui\u2019an, beheaded and with their hands tied behind their backs. They had been forced by the Japanese into a treacherous march to carry supplies and ammunition to the Japanese command post at Mount Mataguac, almost a mile and a half south of the massacre site.<\/p>\n

According to John Blaz, chairman of the Chagui\u2019an Massacre memorial, the Chagui\u2019an Massacre is sometimes called \u201cThe Unknown Massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, residents attended an informational public meeting at the Yigo mayor\u2019s office, held by Garcia and Associates Natural and Cultural Resource Consultants.<\/p>\n

Garcia and Associates was contracted by the Guam Preservation Trust to conduct research into the Chagui\u2019an Massacre and build a packet to be presented to the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is important because most registered historical sites on Guam are Japanese strongholds. The Chagui\u2019an Massacre is important to Chamorros. So, having Chagui\u2019an on the registry will build up and balance out the community\u2019s perspective of the war,\u201d said Kelly Marsh-Taitano, a Nihi Ta Fan Hasso cultural and historical consultant.<\/p>\n

Some in attendance, such as former Yigo Mayor Robert Lizama, questioned the proposed site, which is about 100 yards north of Chalan Emsley.<\/p>\n

Lizama was part of the original trek to the current Chagui\u2019an Massacre memorial site in 2004. The site was discovered using the coordinates given by the 3rd Marine Division and oral accounts by Chamorro war survivors during interviews conducted by students of Peter Onedera at the University of Guam.<\/p>\n

According to data presented at the meeting, the current Chagui\u2019an Massacre site and the proposed site that will be presented to the National Register of Historic Places are a short distance from each other, but still within the Chagui\u2019an area.<\/p>\n

Garcia and Associates project manager Cecilie Craft estimates the distance from the original site to the proposed site to be roughly one kilometer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened is more important than the technical location,\u201d said Jolie Liston, a principal investigator with Garcia and Associates.<\/p>\n

Changes in technology<\/strong>
\nListon said past researchers hand-plotted locations on maps, whereas Garcia and Associates used current technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting to note that the topographic maps used during World War II aren\u2019t even the same latitude and longitude as current maps using modern technology,\u201d Liston said.<\/p>\n

Both sites would be part of the proposed memorial area, which satisfied both parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that people are still talking about the site,\u201d said Lizama. \u201cThese are our uncles — Chamorros who paid the ultimate sacrifice. We must not forget them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAGATNA, Guam (AP)\u2014The Guam Preservation Trust is determined to put the Chagui\u2019an Massacre site in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3271,1806,3483,70],"class_list":["post-198525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam-preservation-trust","tag-hagatna","tag-national-register","tag-technology-2-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}