War in the Pacific Administrative History

Planning and Management of the Park

Planning the future management of the War in the Pacific National Historical Park was Stell Newman's single most important and time-consuming activity during the first years of his superintendency. Newman spent long hours in 1979 and 1980 coordinating efforts to prepare the General Management Plan (GMP). He gathered a wide assortment of information about the park (largely through survey and research projects conducted on contract with MARC at the University of Guam); communicated regularly with and coordinated the visits of NPS Western Regional Office park planners (especially Ron Mortimore); oversaw the translation into Chamorro, printing, and distribution of the GMP; organized public meetings; and responded to endless comments about the plan. During the park planning process Newman, Mortimore, and others examined fundamental park needs, possible park boundary refinements, ideas about interpretation and development, and the identification of key problems facing park development. [269]

During 1979, work on the park's General Management Plan progressed, especially during several visits made by National Park Service Western Regional Office planner Ron Mortimore. Public input was sought early in the planning process at public meetings held in the villages of Agat, Piti, and Asan–all located near park units. A wide assortment of uses was proposed by many groups and individuals for the various park units. These included:

During 1979, Ron Mortimore, assisted by Stell Newman, led the team planning effort on the Guam National Seashore Study. By the end of the year, Mortimore had produced a draft "Statement of Management." [270]

War in the Pacific planning activities in 1980 again concentrated on development of the General Management Plan. Western Regional Office planner Ron Mortimore made several more trips to Guam to lead the planning process. Many research projects undertaken cooperatively by the National Park Service and MARC were completed in 1980 and contributed valuable information to the park planning process. [271] In late April, Newman made available to the public a summary of the draft GMP. This draft briefly described each park unit, the overall objectives of the park, and the proposed plans for using and managing each park unit. Beginning in June, Superintendent Newman organized more public meetings in Aga, Piti, Asan, and Hagatna to explain and answer questions about the draft General Management Plan. By the end of 1980, the draft final GMP had taken shape. [272]

In 1981, Superintendent Newman addressed several elements of the GMP that departed from customary NPS policies and were judged controversial among NPS professionals. Key among them was the tension between preservation of the historical integrity of certain park features and the use of park areas by local Guamanians as well as visitors. Stell Newman examined these two issues, in light of the legislated park purpose, in a memorandum and accompanying in-depth explanation, to the National Park Service's Pacific Area Office director in early April 1981. Newman's memorandum succinctly summarized his general view of how the park should be developed and managed. "I suspect that much of the controversy over these [GMP] proposals," Newman began,

stems from the idea that the War in the Pacific National Historical Park was established to preserve a historical area related to the battle Guam. This brings with it legitimate concerns for historical integrity, preservation of the historical scene, and protection of historical sites and features. However, reviewers should carefully consider the wording of the enabling legislation, which emphasizes that the primary park purpose is to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of those who participated in the Pacific theater of World War II. [273]

Newman also urged reviewers of the GMP to consider the obligation to permit the "continuation of traditional cultural use patterns to our areas. This concern and the scarcity of suitable shoreline on Guam led to GMP proposals to integrate low key and simple shoreline recreational facilities into a national historical park." [274] Newman went on to explain in detail the rationale behind and argue in favor of several specific proposals presented in (and, in some cases, already developed) the GMP: the small picnic area at Apaca Point (Agat unit); a small memorial structure at the tip of Asan Point (Asan Beach unit); and the development of a community open space for large functions on one tract of land at Asan Point.

Through 1981 and into 1982, NPS personnel discussed and debated the perceived merits of and problems in the draft General Management Plan. Basic concerns among NPS cultural resource managers and historians focused on the primacy of preserving, protecting, and interpreting, in an authentic and accurate manner, the historic artifacts, sites, strucutures, and cultural landscapes, dating from World War II, that still remained in the [stl units. Tom Mulhern, chief of the Historic Preservation Division of NPS's Western Regional Office, in a memorandum to NPS planner Ron Mortimore, criticized the GMP's emphasis on recreational use of the Agat Beach and Asan Beach units and the commemorative monuments planned for the Asan Point area, as well as the visually intrusive impact of other proposed developments on the historic setting of the park. [275] Six months passed and discussions about the War in the Pacific GMP among National Park Service historians, including Chief Historian Edwin Bearss, and cultural resource specialists continued. By February 1982, Western Regional Office Regional Historian Gordon Chappell, in a February 4, 1982 memorandum to the Western Regional Office director sharply criticized the GMP for the "inadequate [historical] data base" used to develop the GMP. "In three crucial areas," Chappell wrote, "proposed effects on the land, boundary extensions, and recommendations for additional sites to be marked . . ., the inadequate data base has resulted in a plan that can result in damage or destruction of resources, either by affecting or ignoring them." [276] Chappell strongly recommended that a "historical resource study" of the park, prepared by a professionally qualified military historian in the Park Service, be completed before the GMP be finally approved. Acting Associate Director Ross Holland, Jr., of the Cultural Resources Management division of the National Park Service concurred. He also criticized the inadequacies of historical and archaeological studies already written in conjunction with MARC at the University of Guam, and called for the completion of a historical resources study that relied most heavily on "primary historical records," created at or near the time of the historical event being described. [277]

Meanwhile, as debate continued among National Park Service personnel about the adequacy of the "General Management Plan," local politics approval of the GMP, and forward movement of park development. Influential Guam Representative A. B. Won Pat, in a recent congressional oversight hearing said of War in the Pacific National Historical Park: "We have four employees, a rented office, and a lot of rusting war relics, and that's all." [278] Furthermore, Won Pat complained that there were many home owners and business owners in the Asan Beach area, in particular, that knew their property would be purchased by National Park Service, but didn't know when. [279] Pacific Daily News editor Joseph Murphy editorialized that "for too long that much-discussed park has been sitting there trying to survive and become established without funding by the federal government. Expedient progress in developing the park was locally an important priority.

Despite harsh criticisms of the GMP by National Park Service historians, the planning process for War in the Pacific moved forward (at the same time that funding for and eventual initiation of the Historic Resource Study also moved ahead). In June 1982, Superintendent Newman announced to the media that the draft General Management Plan and Environmental Assessment was available for another round of public review and comment. The environmental assessment section of the document presented the economic and environmental impacts of the proposed park developments. [280]

On Guam, the review of the GMP took place at four scheduled meetings, attended by local villagers, during the summer of 1982. Comments and criticisms of the plan were regularly reported by the news media. Some meeting attendees differed in their view about which park unit should receive the primary focus of development and how each unit should be developed. Others, such as Dr. Joe Cruz, a native of Merizo, Guam, expressed concern about the very limited interpretation of the Chamarro suffering and experiences during World War II in the park units. [281] At one meeting, members of the newly formed citizen's organization, Marianas Recreation and Parks Society, many of whom had helped lay the groundwork for the park and its enabling legislation, commented on several elements of the GMP. Peter Melyan, president of the organization, submitted four pages of testimony at the final public meeting in August 1982. Key criticisms of the GMP included: the exclusion of a naval vessel in the park; maintaining the historic scene in park units; and hiring local Guamanians for permanent park positions. Many appendices that elaborated on specific points accompanied the letter submitted by the Marianas Recreation and Parks Society at public testimony for the War in the Pacific GMP. One month later, the National Parks and Conservation Association echoed some of the same sentiments about the GMP. In September, Superintendent Stell Newman assembled all the comments on the General Management Plan and sent them to NPS planner Ron Mortimore and others in San Francisco for a final analysis and preparation of the final draft General Management Plan. [282]

In mid-February 1983, with the General Management Plan and Environmental Assessment completed, a public meeting was held on Guam at the park's Visitor Information Center (Haloda Building) on Marine Drive for a final review of the GMP. The stated purpose of the meeting, according to NPS employee Jim Miculka, was to insure that all public comments had been thoroughly and accurately addressed in the GMP. Representatives from the National Park Service offices in Honolulu and San Francisco attended the meeting to answer questions. For two days after the meeting, National Park Service representatives met with members of the Marianas Recreation Society and with several Guam government agency officials do discuss any final concerns pertaining to the GMP. The last of all public comments on the GMP were accepted at the park headquarters in the Haloda Building by the end of February 1983. The completed final document was approved, printed, and distributed in May 1983. In addition to describing and prescribing development for each unit of the park, the final GMP acknowledged the need for additional data. The list of additional data needed included:

1.additional oral histories;
2.boundary surveys;
3.additional historical and attitudinal data from Japanese historians;
4.survey data of all the park's underwater acreage;
5.additional marine resources data;
6.a historical resources study;
7.archaeological excavations of certain caves in the park;
8.a scope of collections study;
9.more detailed interpretive plan;
10.a feasibility study of acquiring and maintaining a World War II vessel.

The General Management Plan and Environmental Assessment served as the general "blueprint" for and guided all future development at War in the Pacific National Historical Park. [283]

Development and Maintenance

The physical development and maintenance of War in the Pacific National Historical Park was among Superintendent Newman's major priorities. At the end of his first year as superintendent, Newman cited the lack of physical presence on park lands as a major problem. This "causes local people and agencies to doubt that the Park will be developed in the near future," Newman noted. [284] A year later in early 1981, Newman reiterated the Guamanians eagerness to see the park fully open. "Every contact with the public and especially the media results in the question of when the park will be developed and open to the public." [285] In mid-1982, the park was sharply criticized for its slow development. [286] Actual development of the park consumed the greatest amount of Stell Newman's time.

Acquiring land inside the park boundaries owned by the U.S. Navy, the Government of Guam, or by private parties, logically preceded development of the park as a whole. Land acquisition, however, proved to be a slow and frustrating process. Limited appropriations by Congress to fund War in the Pacific during the first two years of its operation delayed the National Park Service's purchase of the approximately 240 acres of privately owned land inside the various park units. Only very slow progress was made toward acquiring private land. The Park Land Acquisition Plan was drafted, translated into Chamorro, printed (200 copies), and circulated for review in 1979. Newman held two public meetings in 1979, where with NPS's Western Regional Office reality specialists were present to answer questions. These meetings continued into 1980. Public comments were incorporated into the final draft, completed in 1980. Also in 1980, the NPS's Western Regional Office and the Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority (GHURA) entered an agreement, which laid out the procedures for GHURA to serve as land acquisition agent for the park. By 1982, War in the Pacific National Historic Park finally had money available to begin purchasing private land inside the park units. [287]

Much of the physical development work completed during Stell Newman's superintendency was based on site-specific conceptual development planning done by Art Dreyer of the National Park Service's Western Regional Office. Dreyer made several visits to Guam in 1980. Over several months, Dreyer prepared conceptual plans for the Apaca Point picnic area, Gaan Point, and Bangi Point (all in the Agat unit), Adelup Point and Asan Point (in the Asan Beach unit), the Piti Guns unit, Alifan unit, and Lebugan Natural History Area. The development of Adelup Point (Asan Beach unit) Bangi Point (Agat unit), Piti guns, and Mt. Tenjo units was to focus on preserving and interpreting the historic features to the public. [288]

Actual physical development of the park proceeded slowly at first due to inadequate funding and limited park staff. With no maintenance staff, equipment, or supplies in 1979, development activities focused principally on removing trash and inappropriate objects, moving earth, and planting coconut trees in select park areas. Superintendent Newman directed these efforts, accomplished totally by the Young Adult Conservation Corps. The YACC cleared about forty acres in 1979, mostly at Asan Point. An eight-foot-high cyclone fence around Asan Point was removed, as well as a 40' x 200' steel building (given to the agricultural college at the University of Guam). The YACC also cleared acreage at the Agat Beach unit in preparation for the construction of a picnic area there. Finally, the YACC built wooden sign boards for later painting and installation at park entrances. By the end of the year, Newman had acquired an old pickup truck and a dump truck from Navy salvage yards to help with earth-moving development activities. [289] No park units were open to the public in 1979. [290]

The hiring of Roque Borja in February 1980 as chief of maintenance accelerated the park's development and maintenance work. The removal of buildings that were once part of the U.S. naval base–a two-story hospital, barracks, military club buildings–was accomplished either by Roque alone or, with a small group of seasonal, summer employees. Roque had countless truckloads of asphalt, boulders, and rocks torn up and hauled away. Newman estimated that about 2,000 cubic yards of concrete and asphalt were removed from Asan in 1980, much of which was done by volunteers from the Army Reserve Combat Engineers. Borja, assisted by the YACC, uprooted and cut up power poles and cleared away about 300 cubic yards of general debris–rocks, metal objects, broken glass, and brush. [291] Before the end of 1980, a 1950 John Deere tractor with attachments and a 2040 backhoe front-end loader had been ordered and received to help with the earth-moving activities. [292]

The reconstruction of the Asan Beach unit in 1980 and 1981 began with the filling of building foundations and other depressions at Asan Point with 1,000 cubic yards of dirt from a nearby urban redevelopment project. A 1944 road grader, donated to the park by Black Construction Comapny in early 1980, may have been used to help with this and later earth-moving activities. [293] About 800 coconut trees were also planted around Asan Point in 1980; by 1981, they had grown about four feet high. [294] Around the same time, Newman followed through with a suggestion given to him by Japanese government officials during Newman's visit a year earlier; he had a small memorial area created at Asan Point. [295]

Borja oversaw the unloading of more dirt at Asan, this time to create a large raised earthen berm on the south side of the Asan Beach unit along a long stretch of busy Marine Drive. The angle of the berm was slanted to deflect automobile noise and permit mowing. The berm was completed in 1981. (The berm was later removed, except for a short stretch near the large park entrance sign, when a guardrail was put up along the parking area parallel to Marine Drive.) [296] The berm and broad lawn appeared appropriately commemorative. However, by mid-1982, mowing the expansive park lawn at Asan took all the time of six summer workers, thus diverting time and resources away from continued new developments at the Asan Beach unit. [297]

Also in 1980, Borja, with Newman's assistance, laid out parking areas and walking paths at Asan, and began their construction. Borja described the ingenious method devised for constructing the winding path:

Dr. Newman wanted it [the walking path] zig-zagging. . . . So . . . with the 2040 backhoe and front-end loader, I took an angle iron with two rods . . . loaded [these] two rods to it sharp and mounted it to the front end loader and just drove it down . . . making the markings [for the winding path].. . . . And then we went in and rented the asphalt cutter and then removed everything [outside the marks]. [298]

An additional earth-moving activity at the Asan Beach unit focused on constructing a new sewer line and pump station to serve Asan Point. One year earlier, the effect of this project on the historic qualities of Asan, a National Register of Historic Places property, had been evaluated and determined benign. [299] In May 1980, construction began, including trenching for the sewer line and pump station. Superintendent Newman informed the news media that a $36,000 contract had been awarded to Silo Guam, Inc., to do the work. The new sewer system, when completed, would service the building at Asan Point used by the YACC, and would later serve as a public restroom. [300] By early 1982, the YACC had nearly completed a picnic area at Asan Point. [301] Although a great deal of construction work was accomplished in 1980 and machine mowing had begun of the expansive grounds, the Asan Beach unit was not officially opened to the public until 1981.

By 1980, two areas in the Agat unit (Gaan Point and Apaca Point) were developed enough to open to the public. At Gaan Point exotic brush and debris were cleared away from the historic defense structures to permit public access. An entrance sign was also made and erected at Gaan Point by Roque Borja. Around the same time, three flagpoles were erected at Gaan Point to fly the United States, Japanese, and Guam flags. (For the next eleven years, Maintenance Chief Borja personally raised and lowered these flags every day.) [302] At Apaca Point a small picnic area with two small wooden shelters (designed by Tom Fake in the NPS's Honolulu office) and three picnic tables (built by the park's Maintenance Chief Roque Borja), along with three cooking grills, were built. Superintendent Stell Newman organized formal opening ceremonies at Gaan Point in May 1980 and Apaca Point on month later. At the Apaca Point picnic area ceremonies Governor Paul Calvo praised the Young Adult Conservation Corps for their tremendous contribution cleaning up the area and installing the picnic facilities. [303] After its opening, visitors used the Apaca picnic area to its full but limited capacity, despite the lack of running water and restrooms. Gaan Point, with its defense structures, was visited by about 100 people a month. Restrooms at Gaan and Apaca points were not available for public use until 1982. [304]

Through 1980 and 1981, other areas in or associated with the park continued to be cleared of brush and debris, including: Lebugan Natural History area, Adelup Point (Asan Beach unit), Piti unit, and Finille Creek areas. The YACC accomplished most of this work in the summer of 1980. Limited personnel to maintain these areas, however, meant that the rapid regrowth of vegetation soon reversed all human development efforts. In early 1981, Superintendent Newman reported that the "Piti Guns area had to be allowed to re-vegetate." [305] Despite this perpetual challenge of clearing away ramped vegetation, the two Piti guns were open to the public in 1981, accessed by a set of steps. Future plans called for constructing parking areas near the site and making footpaths around the guns.

In 1982, a major park development project was officially launced and celebrated at Gaan Point in the Agat unit–a "Living Memoral" of trees. Park employees had already planted coconut trees at Asan Point in an effort to help restore areas of War in the Pacific Historical Park to the way they looked before the heavy shelling during the 1944 American landing destroyed most of the trees. The denuded ground quickly became taken over by the weed-like tangantangan trees. Dr. J. Henry Hoffmann, a Guam dentist, conceived of and organized the imaginative "Living Memorial." Patterned somewhat after the tree planting commemorative practice in Israel by American Jews, individuals and organizations on Guam, in Japan, and around the United States were invited to contribute $100 for each tree planted. The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy provided and transported the trees to park land. The National Park Service took responsibility for specifying the size and location of each tree, planting the trees, and maintaining them. Proceeds would go to the American Cancer Society. Public dedication ceremonies for the "Living Memorial" project took place on May 26, 1982, at Gaan Point. Governor Paul M. Calvo and Bishop Felixberto C. Flores spoke at the dedication. Superintendent Stell Newman presented a brief historical overview of the park. Pacific Daily News editor Joseph Murphy praised the project for its ingenuity, broad inclusiveness, and positive environmental impact. "The appearance of the park is vital, and that is why this living memorial project is so important." [306]

During the Newman era and through most of the 1980s, Roque Borja worked out of a maintenance shop located in the Asan Beach unit near Asan Point. A two—story Butler-type building (similar to a Quonset hut) near the Asan River, close to the Guam Parks and Recreation maintenance building, served as the maintenance building until the late 1980s. This location seemed ideal to Newman since he envisioned a close working relationship, even the sharing of equipment, between the park and the Guam Park and Recreation Department. [307]

Park development during the Newman years, even though limited, occasionally provoked criticism. In 1979, during Stell Newman's first year as superintendent, a controversy exploded over the construction of a small boat harbor at Gaan Point inside the boundaries of the Agat unit. Before Congress created War in the Pacific National Historical Park in 1978, local Guam government authorities had approved the construction of a small boat harbor at Agat by the U.S. Corps of Engineers, over the objection of the Park Service. When the Corps raised the issue of the marina again, after the 1978 formation of the park, Stell Newman and the Park Service again strongly objected. Representatives of the National Park Service, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the Department of the Interior's executive offices argued vehemently that the proposed small boat harbor was totally unacceptable because it would severely intrude on the historic scene and damage the integrity of the invasion beach and reef area in the vicinity of Gaan Point. After months of debate, Robert Utley, deputy executive director of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C. and Robert Barrell, Hawaii state director of the National Park Service flew to Guam for a public information meeting and private discussions to review the boat harbor proposal. Months of debate and negotiations passed before the Advisory Council and the National Park Service convinced the Corps to find an alternative location for the small boat harbor. [308]

Finally, National Park Service historians in the Western Regional Office began to question whether Stell Newman had followed all the necessary survey and documentation procedures required by historic preservation law to evaluate and preserve whatever historic features still existed in the park dating from World War II–before he removed buildings and vegetation, moved earth, and replanted trees. They also criticized some of his development decisions, like the small memorial area at Asan Point and the three flag poles at Gaan Point, claiming that they intruded on the authentic historic World War II scene. [309]

Physical development and maintenance of the park became severely threatened near the end of Stell Newman's superintendency. In March 1982, the Young Adult Conservation Corps (YACC) ended abruptly with the beginning of the Ronald Reagan administration. Fifteen YACC employees at Asan were dismissed, creating an enormous vacuum in park maintenance capabilities. Superintendent Stell Newman told the local media that the YACC had been responsible for virtually all maintenance work, cleanup, and some construction activities. No new maintenance workers would start working at the park until the end of April. Until then the rest of the park staff would have to pitch in, Newman told the press. "I'll be mowing the lawn this afternoon. . . . We don't want to see the park left unattended." [310]