While it clearly stated in WAPA’s General Management plan that one of its objectives should be to “develop mutual training opportunities, information, and personnel exchanges with local agencies, Micronesia, Japan, and other countries of the Pacific Rim” (1988, p.45), WAPA had yet to expand its horizons to fulfill this mission in Micronesia...Until last week.
Last February, after Supertyphoon Pongsona decimated War in the Pacific’s T. Stell Newman Visitors Center, museum, and administrative offices, Museum Curator Tammy Duchesne was anxious to find new ways to bring historical items from the WAPA collection to the public. While a physical location to display artifacts and exhibits would inevitably take several years to design and construct, Duchesne recognized that by utilizing the internet to develop a website, WAPA would be able to fulfill its enabling legislation “to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of those participating in the campaigns of the Pacific Theater of WWII and to conserve and interpret outstanding, natural, scenic, and historic values and objects on the Island of Guam for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations”.
Having conceived the idea, Duchesne applied for a grant with the Guam Humanities Council; in July, she received notification that War in the Pacific’s grant application for a “WWII website in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Guam” would be funded in full.
When preparing to design the website, she noticed that while WAPA’s interpretive scope includes all the geographies and events of the Second World War in the Pacific Theater, that the historical photo collection focused almost exclusively on the events that occurred on the island of Guam during the recapture of the island from the Japanese (July-August 1944). Realizing that the collection had gaping holes and severe deficiencies as it omitted almost all of the events and battles of Micronesia, Melanesia, the Philippine Islands, Japan, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, Duchesne wanted to supplement the photo collection so that WAPA could provide a more complete, well-rounded, inclusive, and non-biased story to its virtual web-visitors and in-person visitors in the future. Determined to obtain the resources WAPA lacked and needed, Duchesne sought contacts and sources that might be able to help augment and supplement the currently narrow focused historical photo collection.
Aware of the efforts and focuses of the well-respected Micronesian Seminar in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, Duchesne visited their web site (www.micsem.org). While she was aware that they produced on-line historical photo-albums, videos, and publications and maintained one of the best research libraries in the Federated States of Micronesia, she further learned that the Micronesian Seminar, through a private grant from the Sasakawa Foundation and grants from the National Park Service was aggressively collecting photos from individuals, museums, historic preservation offices, colleges and universities, and research institutes such as the Micronesian Area Research Center in Guam, and other sources and institutions in Japan, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Yap, Kosrae, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Hawaii, the United States mainland, in addition to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and the Naval Historical Center in Washington D.C. The Micronesian Seminar website boasted that their photo gathering efforts resulted in a collection of over 24,000 images of all time periods and geographies in Micronesia. Wanting to benefit from the riches of this photo archive, Duchesne contacted the Director, Fran Hezel to discuss opportunities for cooperation and partnering.
Duchesne explained War in the Pacific’s compromised position with the closure of their museum and described how the on-line grant would be WAPA’s opportunity to provide the services they once did. Hezel was enthusiastic to help and volunteered to not only assist WAPA and NPS by providing suggestions on strategies on how to develop their website but he also asserted that “he would stand by the WAPA Curator and assist her throughout the process”.
When Duchesne expressed her interest in using the Micronesian Seminar’s photo archives to provide the resources that WAPA sorely lacked, Hezel offered Duchesne access to the photo archives to utilize some of their more than 24,000 images to supplement the areas in which WAPA was deficient. Duchesne was elated by the offer and after sufficient planning and communication, took Hezel up on his offer to assist.
On January 12th Duchesne arrived at Pohnpei airport, where Hezel and the Seminar’s administrator, Elsa Veloso, greeted her. In the course of two weeks Duchesne scanned and obtained more than digital 2,000 images which photo document the events of WWII in areas such as Palau, Peleliu, Chuuk, Ulithi, Enewetak, Kwajalein, Majuro, Tinian, Saipan, and smaller and less known atolls of the geographic region of Micronesia. As a researcher in residence, Duchesne was able to obtain an amazing quantity of interesting and diverse photographic resources. The Micronesian Seminar made its facility very accessible and was amazingly generous and courteous in the treatment of their guest and researcher.
Before arriving on Pohnpei, Duchesne shared scans of public domain images from WAPA and passed along scanned copies of veterans’ photographs to the institute. Duchesne provided the Micronesian Seminar with these photos so they might expand their photo collection and so that recent image donations from veterans might be featured in the Micronesian Seminar website while the WAPA website remains in the planning and development stage. Veterans and photo donors were eager at the chance to have their images included in an upcoming Micronesian Seminar photo album and in the War in the Pacific website. Through cooperation and partnership, War in the Pacific was able to obtain over 2,000 new images from the Micronesian Seminar which will help compensate for shortcomings in the collection with respect to the Micronesian region. These images will be a great asset in telling a more complete and well-rounded view of the war as these images will be able to honor the people who served in diverse locations and recognize those who endured the hardships of WWII in the Pacific Theater. While the Micronesian Seminar provided over 2,000 new images for the WAPA historical photo collection from the Micronesian region, the National Park Service’s Historical Park in Guam still needs to obtain images from such places as Midway, Iwo Jima, Philippines, Japan, New Guinea, Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, and several islands from Melanesia. These images will be obtained in late February when Duchesne will travel to the National Archives and the Naval Historical Center to scan photos from the aforementioned geographic regions. This resource-gathering trip will be made along with the President and publication manager from the Arizona Memorial Museum Association. Funding for the museum curator’s research and resource gathering trip to Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, was provided through a grant from the Guam Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
