War in the Pacific Administrative History

Building and Maintaining the Park

Park construction and maintenance during the 1991 — 2002 period were carried out with inadequate funding, in a destructive tropical climate, while dodging typhoons and severe tropical storms. If a park resource was constructed of metal, it rusted, if it was organic, it had to be mowed or trimmed weekly, if it was steep it was shaken loose by earthquakes, if it was not firmly embedded in the earth, it was blown away, and if it was anywhere near sea level, it flooded. Park maintenance required the patience of Job and the marine architecture of Noah. In the midst of all of this, park staff was thrust into the vanguard of preparations to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the 1944 American World War II landing on Guam.

According to available records, 1991 was merely the continuation of a routine that had evolved in the park since its founding in 1978. In the summer, two members of the Youth Conservation Corps who worked in the park from June 17, 1991, to August 9, 1991, supported park staff. [469] The six park staff and the two YCC employees were busy. Vehicle gates and automobile barriers were installed at both Asan Point and Asan Overlook; native vegetation was restored at Asan Point and Gaan; flagpoles were replaced, restrooms repainted, and picnic sites replaced at Gaan; and park roadway striping was repainted. [470] Within the seven separate park units there were seven miles of beach, seventeen miles of roads, and eight miles of trails to be maintained; and there were seventy acres of grass to be mowed each week throughout the entire year. Additionally, staff completed and installed a special Insular Guard exhibit, and had started construction of wayside exhibits; and begun the production of audiovisuals. In July, park staff won second place for its float in the Liberation Day parade. The maintenance staff, under the direction of former maintenance supervisor Roque Borja (who had retired in the fall of 1991), built a full-scale replica of a World War II amphibious vehicle that had been designed by Dave McLean, NPS Harpers Ferry.

The year 1992 was a continuation of 1991. Painting, repairing, mowing, and planting were briefly but noticeably interrupted by a typhoon. On August 28, 1992, Typhoon Omar, with winds of 140 to 165 miles per hour graced the island. Three park employees lost their homes, two other park staffers lost most of their roofs, and every park employee suffered some damage to their personal property. Broken windows, soaked carpeting, uprooted trees, and damaged cars accented the aftermath. The Arizona Memorial Museum Association immediately set up a relief fund and purchased supplies, both food and materials needed for repairs.

The typhoon paused briefly at the park's visitor center where it broke three large windows and flooded the entire administration area. Electrical service was lost (as it was throughout much of the island) and was not returned for two months. Park staff purchased a 30-kilowatt generator and had it shipped from Honolulu. [471]

The Asan Beach area was littered with downed trees and debris resulting from the high winds and water; the Asan Inland area suffered major tree loss (the maintenance building located in this unit survived with only minimal damage); and the Piti Guns area lost at least two hundred trees, including twelve old-growth mahogany trees. The Apaca picnic area in the Agat Unit was totally submerged under several feet of water; the wooden pavilions were torn apart, and when the water receded the entire picnic area was covered by sand, gravel, and coral. Five major old-growth trees were felled in the Gaan area, falling trees destroyed its picnic tables, and most of the beach vegetation was lost. The World War II bunkers, however, survived the storm. The restroom facility at the Rizal area of the Agat Unit lost its roof resulting in the complete loss of its fixtures.

Both the Mt. Alifan Unit and the Fonte Plateau Unit suffered heavy winds, that stripped much of the vegetation and enthusiastically stirred up the rusted car bodies and refrigerators the residents of Guam had been so graciously donating to the park's cultural landscape for many years but had been well concealed by the lush tropical flora. Of all the park areas, the only site that escaped severe damage was the future site of the Asan Bay Overlook on Nimitz Hill. [472] Due to its location, it escaped the most severe winds. [473]

Water and electricity were not restored to the entire island for several months. Within just a few weeks of the typhoon all island retail stores ran out of batteries, gas stoves, propane, candles, kerosene, flashlights, small portable electrical generators, and bottled water. Residents, who could afford it, relocated their entire families to temporary rentals in motels and other temporary lodging where generators could supply electricity for air conditioning and food refrigeration.

As the fiftieth anniversary of World War II in the Pacific approached, suddenly the eyes of the world, and the eyes of the United States Congress, became narrowly focused on War in the Pacific National Historic Park. Specifically, the eyes of Congress and the eyes of the world were focused on the six permanent employees at the park. Prior to this 1991-94 period, park maintenance had emphasized clearing non-historic structures and providing visitors with basic, essential services such as restrooms and parking areas. Inadequate staffing and funding prohibited the realization (and perhaps even the conceptualization) of any greater aspirations. As reported in a 1992 report by the superintendent:

Developments in both War in the Pacific NHP and American Memorial Park have lagged behind the initial estimates. Funding has not materialized and only recently has the interest been sufficient to bring about any substantial improvements. With the exception of the American Memorial Trust Fund and some small donations, all development of the parks has been accomplished within programs of the National Park Service's annual appropriations for operations. [474]

During this same period, the park was gaining in popularity with Japanese tourists as well as an increasing number of World War II veterans. Over 60,320 guests stopped at the visitor center in 1991, and certainly an exponentially larger number of persons drove right past the unimposing two-story building to visit the various park units. [475] Although the park had an FTE ceiling of 10.9 (which would probably have still been inadequate for a park with seven discontiguous units situated in a typhoon-bashed tropical climate), only six staffers were there. According to a Congressional briefing sheet:

The park was established in 1978 and has been operated at a below minimally acceptable level ever since. Little progress has been made toward the park goals since the low staffing has prevented the programs from being advertised in interpretive programs. The park image is poor in the community because most staff time is utilized to complete the protection of the historic resources. With few exceptions, training of the staff has been delayed because of the high costs and long time requirements inherent in mainland training courses. Thus, the staff is not as efficient as is required to operate adequately at the current level of staffing. [476]

And, the very physical nature of the historic sites these six staffers were charged with protecting exacerbated problems confronted by staff even more was:

Numerous historic sites and artifacts exist within the boundaries of the park that relate to World War II. Many of the sites were constructed rapidly and without regard for longevity. A large number are deteriorating badly and will collapse if not treated immediately. The salt-water mixed aggregate will not withstand weathering and after nearly fifty years the structural integrity is questionable. The historic value of rebuilt temporary defensive structures is a matter of conjecture since the historic fabric would no longer be intact and only a replica would remain. [477]

In 1992, Robert Underwood, representative from Guam, introduced House Bill 1944 in the 103^rd Congress that authorized the construction of a monument within the park commemorating the "loyalty of the people of Guam and the heroism of the American forces that liberated Guam." The legislative motivation that had been building behind this proposed law was made very clear by a letter sent almost a year earlier to Manuel Lujan, Jr., then Secretary of the Interior, by members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, asking the Park Service to budget funds for park improvement:

In 1978, Public Law 95-348 established the War in the Pacific Park in Guam and the American Memorial Park in Saipan and authorized $19 million for park development. However, to this day only $3 million has been appropriated. The "parks" are not only incomplete, but are a sad statement of our Nation's indifference to the memory of those who suffered under occupation or fought for freedom. It would be truly negligent for us to fail to complete these parks in time for the 50^th anniversary of the very battles they commemorate. [478]

The single most significant maintenance and construction activity undertaken to prepare for the fiftieth anniversary celebrations was the construction of the Asan Bay Overlook, complete with memorial walls listing United States military and Guam civilians who were casualties of the war. This construction was contracted out with the exception of paving which was performed by the navy. In addition to the overlook, landscapes were manicured, parking areas and roads re-striped, signs repaired or replaced, and museum exhibits readied. [479]

After the last trumpet notes of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations had echoed across the Philippine Sea, park routine again became routine, until the latter part of 1997. On December 16, 1997, Guam was struck by another super typhoon. Referred to as Paka, it was the most severe typhoon in the history of the park. The damage visited on the island and on the park, as well as the damage control and logistical problems caused by the storm were reruns of issues and problems caused just six years earlier by typhoon Omar. Loss of electrical power and the consequential threat to artifacts and furnishings, exhaustion of emergency equipment, severe damage to park structures including picnic tables, vehicle roadways and pedestrian trails, felled trees, and loss of vegetation. A new visitor center/administrative offices/museum had not been funded; consequently those activities remained in the same building still located the same twenty-five yards from the edge of the same lagoon. Winds tore off a basement door facing the water, which resulted in severe damage to carpets, exhibit cases, and exhibits, not only from flooding, but also from actual wave action to which the bottom floor was exposed. The roof of the building was also damaged. The combination of waves pounding the ground floor and wind-driven rain caused an estimated $137,000 in damages. It was only through the extraordinary efforts of park staff that the visitor center was reopened to the public in less than one month, and within two months Asan Point and Gaan Point were both reopened for visitation. [480]

One of the more unexpected, and yet in hindsight probably obvious results of the typhoon was an increase in park visitors. The island-wide loss of both electricity and water and the resulting closure of most public facilities, including other public parks, resulted in a 7.7 per cent increase in park visitation, further exacerbating the already extraordinarily stressful conditions under which park staff was working. [481]

On January 16, 1998, the Incident Command Team, Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation, National Park Service (BAER) group arrived on Guam to evaluate park damage caused by Paka. After conducting an examination and analysis of park damage, much as it did six years earlier, the group concluded that damages suffered by the park were valued at $1,865,003. [482]

Park cleanup efforts were augmented by forty volunteer participants from the Volunteer-In-Parks Program who provided a total of 466 labor hours, and sixty-eight Community Service Program clients [483] who provided a total of 8,016 hours in park cleanup. Additionally, NPS employees from HAVO, NEPE and OLYM were dispatched to the park, the Government of Guam assigned ten temporary employees and the park hired thirty additional temporary employees over a period of several months. A bucket truck, bobcat, backhoe, dump truck, stake-bed truck, and tilt trailer were either rented by the park or provided by SEKI and HAVO to support the cleanup.

More than twenty dump-truck loads of debris were removed from the visitor center parking lot, including more than six inches of beach sand and multiple loads of concrete debris. New security gates had to be installed at the entrance to the office as well as the entrance to the parking garage. It took an unbelievable 200 dump-truck loads to clear rubbish from the Asan Beach Unit, where twenty fully-dedicated employees spent over thirty days removing rocks and coral from the grass and beach areas. Some of the rocks rolled in by the typhoon weighed more than 300 pounds each. [484] The typhoon also demolished a 100' x 10' section of sidewalk that had been constructed using reinforced concrete with extra wide outside edges. Approximately one-and-one-half miles of sidewalks and parking lot were covered with at least six inches of sand; gates, bollards, parking curbs, trashcans, and restroom doors were all replaced. [485] The palm trees were only minimally damaged — more than 450 palm trees were still standing after the storm, park employees merely trimmed them and removed any coconuts still attached.

It took a crew of fifteen seventeen days to remove downed trees from the Piti Guns area; they filled thirty truckloads with debris from the area. Two weeks were spent clearing rock and sand from Gaan Point; fifty truckloads of debris and twenty truckloads of sand and rock were taken off. Over one hundred truckloads of debris were removed from Apaca Point; and 300 yards of fill had to be brought in. Again, palm trees survived. The 200 palm trees that graced Gaan Point merely had to be trimmed and coconuts left hanging removed.

In the brief four-year respite between typhoons (please note "severe tropical storms" have been too numerous to detail), park staff stabilized three pillboxes by patching concrete, replaced Mabini Monument plaques, trimmed over 900 coconut trees, installed picnic tables and grills, built forty trash can holders, planted over one hundred flowering plants at the new Asan Bay Overlook, and replaced forty concrete steps leading up to the Piti Guns. Staff also modified the maintenance shop by constructing a mezzanine storage area inside the building and an outbuilding for the storage of hazardous waste. With the exception of emergency hires blown in by typhoons, one Chief of Maintenance and two WG-3 laborers performed all this maintenance. As stated by one recent superintendent:

Community Service program participants donated in excess of 10,000 hours [in 2001] — equivalent to 5 FTE. Without this program, the Park would not be able to keep up with general and daily maintenance — the Park desperately needs more personnel in maintenance. War in the Pacific has a critical need for additional maintenance personnel. The park cannot continue to depend on this program [community service] so heavily. Within the last two months, the park has seen the number of people drop from 20 to 5 because other agencies are now taking these people. [486]

In addition to mowing more than seventy acres each week, every week of the year, pruning 900 palm trees, restoring restrooms and trails from vandalism damage, the installation of the Asan Bay Overlook Memorial Plaques created a whole new set of maintenance problems. The extremely high humidity of the Guam tropical climate, coupled with frequent severe tropical storms and frequent vandalism (due to the complete absence of any law enforcement budget), [487] Park staff has recently been forced to deal with the rapid deterioration of these memorial plaques, including stripping and treating them. In 2001, that effort cost $36,000. [488]

Interpreting Park Resources

The Division of Interpretation continued to tell the story of World War II in the Pacific and on Guam throughout the 1990s. The T. Stell Newman Visitor Center with its exhibits, slide and video programs, and its gift and bookshop remained the primary place of park visitor contact with NPS staff. The Asan Beach Overlook, developed in the mid-1990s, became a popular point of interpretation and contemplation. Outdoor interpretive plaques, commemorative monuments, and a few pieces of large military equipment and machinery in three park units (Asan Beach, Agat Beach, and Piti) remained less-visited places of park interpretation. A few grand plans initiated in the late 1980s, such as the relocation of a two-person World War II Japanese submarine from the U.S. Naval Station on Guam to the park, and the construction of an 8,000 square-foot visitor center on Nimitz Hill, never materialized. The fiftieth anniversary of World War II, however, brought about many new programs, exhibits, and activities at War in the Pacific National Historical Park that began in 1991 (fifty years after the Japanese invasion of Guam) and climaxed in July 1994 (fifty years after the U.S. military landing on Guam). In addition to rapidly advancing development efforts, the fiftieth anniversary of World War II in the Pacific presented the park with numerous opportunities to reach out to and cooperate with the larger Guamanian community in a way that it never had before, in planning, commemorative celebrations, and interpretive programs. The oral history program, in particular, became an important vehicle for not only gathering valuable historical information but for bringing the people of Guam and the park staff together.

Two interpretive efforts in the late 1980s–the relocation of a Japanese submarine to the park and the construction of a new visitor center on Nimitz Hill–never became the reality originally conceived, but evolved into slightly different interpretive projects. For several years, the National Park Service pondered the borderline appropriateness of the costly maintenance of a Japanese two-man submarine in the park. In 1992, the submarine, located at the Naval Station on Guam, was judged in poor condition due to rusting and exposure to the marine environment. The vessel could not be moved as a whole because its diminished structural integrity would result in breakage. The Navy began studying the best method for moving the submarine; these investigations dragged on for many months. [489] The U.S. Navy eventually began to lose interest in paying to have the submarine moved from the Naval Station to the park. By 1994, the climactic year of NPS's interpretation of World War II in the Pacific, all plans to move the submarine to the park had been apparently abandoned. Instead, park staff took its interpretation outside the park to the off-site submarine. NPS created and placed an exhibit about the submarine at the Naval Station (along with a second exhibit at the War Dog Cemetery, also at the Naval Station). [490] These two exhibits were among the thirty new outdoor exhibit panels created by NPS for the World War II fiftieth anniversary celebrations on Guam. [491]

The planned new park visitor center atop Nimitz Hill on Spruance Drive in the Asan Inland unit of the park also experienced a transformation in its execution. Between 1989, when the NPS's Denver Service Center and Harpers Ferry Center had initially put together a conceptual design for the visitor center, and 1992, $15,000 had been spent developing these conceptual plans further. By 1992, the Denver Service Center and the new Superintendent, Edward E. Wood, Jr., estimated that the cost of the Nimitz Hill Visitor Center would be $8,000,000 to $10,000,000. [492] In early 1993, Superintendent Wood justified an appropriation for the construction of the Nimitz Hill Visitor Center to the 103^rd Congress by stating that: "With the 50^th Anniversary Commemoration approaching, a park presence needs to be established and the Visitor Center is an [sic] major portion of this requirement." [493] By the early summer of 1993, the plan to construct such a visitor center by 1994 had been abandoned, due to inadequate congressional funding and the diminished time left to complete the project in time for the celebrations scheduled for July 1994. [494] In June 1993, Leslie Turner, assistant secretary of Territorial and International Affairs, noted that the National Park Service still preferred the Nimitz Hill location for its new visitor center, with its commanding views of the American Marine landing beaches (and park units) at Asan and Agat. Congressional funding of $45,000 for the project, however, only permitted gradually phased development of the site. "The first phase would be a scenic overlook with parking, walkways and wayside exhibits. The second phase would be the visitor center." In late 1993, Guam State Historic Preservation Officer Richard D. Davis, confounded what had already become an unlikely venture when he stated that design restrictions were needed and desirable for the Nimitz Hill Visitor Center, otherwise it might negatively impact the historic scene and disturb potential prehistoric and historic archaeological deposits in the vicinity of the site. [495] As late as January 1993, the Park Service held out hope for a visitor center on Nimitz Hill, which might be ready to open in July 1994. By then, however, confusion reigned among some Western Region staff about whether NPS and the Government of Guam might jointly build a visitor center and/or veterans memorial at Asan Point, rather than construct a solely NPS visitor center on Nimitz Hill. [496] After fiftieth anniversary celebrations ended in 1994, Congress, apparently, felt less compelled to appropriate a huge sum to implement the phase II construction of the visitor center on Nimitz Hill.

Also, disagreement arose between the Government of Guam, which had initially promised to financially support the Nimitz Hill Visitor Center, and the Park Service over the best site for visitor contact within the park. In the early 1990s, the Guam Legislature had established a Veteran's Memorial Committee, charged with planning the construction of a memorial complex with a visitor contact area, outdoor exhibits, and a remembrance wall within the Asan Beach unit. This site, more than the Nimitz Hill site, had greater historic World War II significance to the people of Guam. The Government of Guam, thus, withdrew its pledged financial support of the Nimitz Hill Visitor Center plan. [497]

Fiftieth Anniversary Projects

Fiftieth anniversary special projects, programs, and commemorative ceremonies involved special planning, projects, and people War in the Pacific staff participated in local planning for fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Guam Governor Joseph Ada appointed the park's Interpretation Division Chief Rose Manibusan to the "50^th Anniversary Defende Tanota (Defense of Guam, 1941) Steering Committee. [498] The National Park Service focused tremendous attention on interpreting the American landing on Guam in July 1994 and World War II in the Pacific. Many volunteers, employees of the Micronesia Area Research Center at the University of Guam, and National Park Service personnel from Harpers Ferry Center and the Western Regional Office in San Francisco worked together to plan, pay for, and produce several interpretive projects, including wayside exhibits, indoor exhibits and video programs that included an oral history component, construction of the Asan Bay Overlook (in the Asan Inland unit), and trail rehabilitation to Asan Ridge and Piti guns.

In 1991, an interpretive planning team comprised of staff from Harpers Ferry Center (HFC) and the Western Regional Office visited the park. Planning team members included Lynne Nakata, Dave McLean, Karine Erlebach, and Cliff Soubier, met with the Interpretation Chief Rose Manibusan to evaluate and improve the park's interpretive programs. [499] This team began developing several interpretive projects, planned for completion by July 1994. Even before the end of 1991, Rose Manibusan and Lynne Nakata developed a scope of work for a new indoor exhibit in honor of the Insular Force Guard. [500] On December 10, 1991, Superintendent Wood and Rose Manibusan unveiled this new exhibit, "Guam Insular Guard," at the Stell Newman Visitor Center. Attending the exhibit opening were local dignitaries, former members of the Guam Insular Force Guard, and the NPS Chief Historian Edwin Bearss, who was a guest speaker at the ceremonies. Other guest speakers included Guam Governor Joseph F. Ada, U.S. Congressman Ben Blaz, Rear Admiral James Perkins, III, and Insular Guardsman Pedro G. Cruz. [501]

In fiscal year 1992, Harpers Ferry Center allocated funds for wayside exhibits and audiovisual projects. In January that year, the HFC audiovisual producer spent several weeks at the park. Wayside exhibit planner from HFC, Richard Hoffman, came to Guam in April 1992 to meet with Rose Manibusan and determine the number, location, and interpretive needs for each wayside exhibit. Manibusan and volunteers immediately began compiling research data for the wayside interpretive panels. [502]

Over the next two years, the National Park Service moved ahead with the implementation of plans to interpret and celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of World War II in the Pacific wayside exhibits. Funding for these exhibits came from the Arizona Memorial Museum Association, the Guam Humanities Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. By mid-1994, thirty wayside exhibits had been completed by Harpers Ferry Center (for approximately $150,000). These outdoor interpretive panels stood at various sites in the park–Asan Beach, Piti, Apaca Point, and Gaan Point (Agat Beach unit)–as well as at the two-person Japanese submarine and the War Dog Cemetery, both located at the U.S. Naval Base on Guam. [503]

For the fiftieth anniversary celebrations, the park interpretive staff, led by Rose Manibusan, put together a suite of changing indoor exhibits in the Stell Newman Visitor Center. Exhibits presented a number of themes: the first year of war, the Chamorros during the war, women and children on Guam during the war, the fall of the Philippines, naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign, the atomic bomb, and aircraft of World War II (presented by models fabricated by park volunteer David Lotz). Typically, the indoor exhibits changed about every six months, between June 1992 and mid-1994. Many of the interpretive panels were written English, Chamorro, and Japanese. [504]

Media served as an important aspect of the park's indoor exhibits. Harper's Ferry Center and the Western Region played the lead role in planning and developing interpretive media for the fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Harpers Ferry Center put together a video, entitled "Recapture of Guam" (for around $250,000). The HFC also produced a video, "Liberating Guam." This film relied heavily on oral history videotaped interviews conducted by park staff and volunteers, in conjunction and with the enthusiastic guidance and support of MARC, especially Dirk Ballendorf, at the University of Guam. The Guam Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Arizona Memorial Museum Association contributed large sums to the film's production. These interviews passionately captured the personal stories of Guamanians, while the Japanese occupied the island during World War II. This interactive video premiered in July 1994. A year later, "Liberating Guam" won a finalist award (one of four top awards given) at twentieth-eighth Annual WorldFest in Houston, Texas, in a film contest with 4,100 entries competing from thirty-seven countries. [505]

Construction of the Asan Bay Overlook on Nimitz Hill, considered seriously as the site for a new visitor center for five years (1998-1993), was another important fiftieth anniversary project. The overlook provided a spectacular panoramic view of the American landing beaches at Asan and the highlands rising up from the beaches. The overlook interpretive memorial garden was dedicated to the Chamorro who suffered during the Japanese occupation (1941-1944) and to the American casualties of the Guam campaign. The new Asan Bay Overlook had space for twenty cars and six buses. It opened in July 1944, during the climactic events of the fiftieth anniversary ceremonies. [506]

The preparations made by the National Park Service and other government agencies and organizations for celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of World War II on Guam and Saipan in the Pacific culminated in July 1994. During the week of July 18-22, when the U.S. had landed and retaken Guam fifty years earlier, the Government of Guam, U.S. armed forces, and the National Park Service organized a series of commemorative activities promoted as the "Golden Salute." Highlights of the week included memorial services on land and sea, several dedication ceremonies, an air show, a parade, a fireworks display, and a festival. On July 19, the parks new memorial complex at Asan Bay Overlook as formally dedicated. A joint ceremony for Japanese and American veterans, aimed at closing the book of war to peace and harmony in the future, closed the Golden Salute weeklong activities. [507]

American Memorial Museum Association

The Arizona Memorial Museum Association (AMMA), one of over fifty non-profit cooperating associations throughout the United States that supported the educational, scientific, historical, and research efforts of the National Park Service, helped promote and interpret War in the Pacific park in numerous ways in the 1990s. The Guam branch of AMMA, headquartered at the USS Arizona Memorial Park in Honolulu, helped fund new exhibits in the Stell Newman Visitor Center, prepare and print new guidebooks and pamphlets, and contribute to special events.

AMMA played a critically important role in helping the park fund and orchestrate numerous items and activities associated with the 1994 fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the World War II landing of the American military on Guam. The association funded completely or in part some of the commemoration ceremonies and guidebooks, such as the "Asan Beach Guide" [508] and four companion guidebooks produced for each of the four fiftieth anniversaries of the War in the Pacific. [509]The American Memorial Museum Association also contributed to the fiftieth anniversary commemoration poster contest battle map, visitor center library activities, and oral history transcriptions. [510] The association funded and staged a volunteer appreciation banquet in late August 1994 to thank all those volunteers who had contributed to the fiftieth anniversary celebratory programs. In August 1994, Superintendent Wood loudly praised the AMMA for all its contributions to the park. "The assistance we received from you," Wood wrote to AMMA executive director Gary Beito, "and the Association for these activities has proved to be . . . a godsend. Without it, we would have been hard-pressed to accomplish what we did and the whole commemoration would have been significantly lacking in the details that made it so successful." [511]

After these celebrations, AMMA continued to support the purchase of equipment and supplies, such as curatorial storage facilities, traveling and stationary exhibits, and the conversion of historic photos to high quality CD-ROM format. AMMA aided the park in continuing to develop its oral history program. In 1998, AMMA contributed $25,000 to park operations, mostly to interpretive activities and projects ($8,000 to oral history, $8,000 to special events, $6,000 to the visual interpretive computer system, and a total of $3,000 to curatorial projects and the park library.) [512] Between 1989 and 1999, AMMA donated over $300,000 to the park, primarily its interpretive activities. AMMA occupied space in the Stell Newman Visitor Center throughout the 1990s. [513]

Oral History Project at War in the Pacific Park

The fiftieth anniversary celebrations of World War II invigorated the park's oral history efforts, then in its infancy. Since the founding of the park, Dirk Ballendorf and other staff at the University of Guam's Micronesia Area Research Center had encouraged first Superintendent Stell Newman and subsequent park superintendents to interview and tape record the valuable World War II recollections of selected Guam island residents, before these memories were totally lost. The return of hundreds of World War II U.S. and Japanese veterans to Guam for fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1994 provided the park and the other agencies on Guam with an abundant rationale to forge ahead with a serious well-organized oral history program. The fifty year-old video-taped remembrances of Guam residents and military participants would not only be a valuable addition to the historical record of the war, but could also be used to created poignant and effective interpretive educational NPS programs being produced for the anniversary activities at the park. Importantly, recording the different memories and perspectives of eye witnesses also presented the park with a superb opportunity to reach out beyond the park boundaries and connect in a personal way with the Guamanian people and, at the same time, meaningfully communicate important aspects of the park's mission and goals to island residents.

In the early 1990s, individuals in NPS's Western Regional Office and Harpers Ferry Center began working on a film production that would incorporate videotaped eyewitness accounts of the war on Guam. In late 1992 and early 1993, Chief of Interpretation Rose Manibusan and Superintendent Ed Wood began writing to U.S. and Japanese World War II veterans who had fought on Guam, asking that they record their memories of experiences on Guam. [514] Discussions between Wood and Manibusan, Lynne Nakata and Jonathan Bayless (NPS Western Region), and Karine Erlebach (Harpers Ferry Center) about the logistics of and funding for a fiftieth anniversary "Oral History Project" continued through 1993. Interviews actually began soon afterward. Among those interviewed were Beatrice Emsley, Pedro Cruz, Hiram Elliot, Carmen Artero Kasperbaur, Ralph Reyes, Juan Perez, Pete Perez, Francisco Cruz, and war veterans Jack Eddy, Pete Siquenza, and Ben Blaz. [515]

In the spring of 1994, Manibusan met with MARC Professor Dirk Ballendorf to discuss the park's oral history program. One month later, the National Park Service sponsored oral history training for park staff, park volunteers, and other interested individuals on Guan in preparation for fiftieth anniversary tours in July that year. During the "Golden Salute activities, marking the climax of the fiftieth anniversary commemorative celebrations in July 1994, two teams of NPS (Steve Haller and Daniel Martinez) and Air Force (Al Miller and Chuck McManus) historians interviewed more than fifty returning U.S. veterans and Guamanian survivors of World War II. Guam cable TV and KGTF-TV donated the crews and equipment to film the interviews. The Guam Hilton Hotel donated rooms to be used to conduct oral history interviews. [516]

War in the Pacific's oral history program subsided after the climatic fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1994. Other interpretive activities, such as the installation of new exhibits in the Visitor Center and the design, construction, and dedication of the Asan Memorial Wall, diverted some of the park's limited human and financial resources away from the oral history program.

In 1997, the oral history program became re-energized by the Arizona Memorial Museum Association-sponsored oral history training workshop that featured instructors Warren Nishimoto (director, Center for Oral History, University of Hawaii), Dirk Ballendorf (professor, MARC), Donald Platt, Daniel Hildenbrandt, and Tony Palomo, held at the Guam Hilton in early June. Two months later, the park organized the park's first volunteer oral history team, the "Marianas Oral History Team," coordinated by Rose Manibusan, Tony Ramirez, Herbert Del Rosario, and Joe Guerrero. Soon, the Mariana Islands Oral History Team hosted an oral history photographic exhibit on Saipan and Guam in the fall of 1997. Super Typhoon Paka and the tremendous damage caused to the park in December 1997 as well as preparations for the park's twentieth anniversary and for the arrival of Presidential Bill Clinton in the summer and fall of 1998, diverted attention away from the oral history efforts. [517]

Celebrating the Park and the President in 1998

The spring and early summer months of 1998 were spent preparing for the twentieth anniversary of War in the Pacific National Historical Park. August 18 marked the park's official birth date. Earlier in the year, Acting Governor Madeline Bordallo signed a proclamation designating the month of August as National Park month on Guam. The park staff and the Guam's delegate to Congress invited the public to a special ceremony, "Preserving Out Natural and Cultural Heritage," at Asan Point on August 18. Roughly 200 people attended this special event. Dirk Ballendorf, professor at MARC, presented a history of the first ten years of the Park Service on Guam. Tony Palomo, director of the Guam Museum, presented the history of the second ten years War in the Pacific National Historical Park, and a new twenty-minute video entitled, Guam's Past and Promise for the Future, produced by Greg Champion and Tim Rock and written by Jim Miculka and Rose Manibusan featuring park sites, awareness of endangered species, and environmental concerns on the island, was shown at the Visitors Center. In his keynote address, Honorable Robert A. Underwood, delegate to Congress, talked about the history and significance of War in the Pacific. Underwood and Chief of Interpretation Rose Manibusan presented special awards to significant park partners, volunteers, and the park staff. The Arizona Memorial Museum Association financially sponsored this event. [518]

Less than four months after the twentieth anniversary celebrations, President Bill Clinton visited Guam and War in the Pacific National Historical Park. Air Force 1 arrived with the president at Won Pat Guam International Airport on November 23, 1998 to a warm, flag-waving and wildly cheering crowd, with raised "Hafa Adai" signs, all along the route of the presidential motorcade on Marine Drive. In the mid-morning, President gave a short, fifteen-minute speech, the first presidential address on Guam since 1986, to about 25,000 Guam residents at the Ricardo J. Bordallo Governor's Complex at Adelup. Later, the presidential motorcade ascended Nimitz Hill to War in the Pacific's Asan Bay Overlook. Chief of Interpretation Rose Manibusan and park ranger Michael Tajalle took turns presenting a fifteen-minute history of Guam during World War II and the significance of the park to the President, who stood quietly with his hands behind his back and listened. "He listened–he just listened," Manibusan later said. Ranger Tajalle exclaimed later that it was "really a great honor to meet the president . . . I was really shocked–I figured he had a lot of questions to ask about the story we gave, but he didn't." [519] Clinton led Guam Governor Carl Gutierrez and First Lady Geri Gutierrez along the wall of names stopping briefly at the name of the First Lady's mother. The president then laid a wreath at the memorial, before being greeted by a small group of World War II veterans, dressed in their military uniforms. The presidential limousine soon afterward, wound its way down Nimitz Hill amidst more island residents waving American flags. Only a few hours later, President Clinton left Guam, a stop on the final leg of his tour of Asian countries. [520]