Liberation

A column of Chamorros, the natives of Guam, came out of the murky, rain-drenched morning, their brown skins glistening with rain. Half-naked, hungry, unwashed, hundreds of them filed slowly from the wooded uplands. Solemnly they walked to the American trucks and "ducks" waiting to take them to an American camp. One native shook hands with a soldier and said: "We glad you here."

The soldier turned to his buddies: "Good God, it's unbelievable that they still believe in us."

These were the first U.S. nationals to be liberated from the Japanese. Behind the Chamorros lay two years and eight months of slavery under the Japs; ahead lay months more of toil to rebuild their homes and farms destroyed by American might. But ahead, too, lay freedom and friendship--freedom to speak English or any other language, to go to church and confession, to send children to school.

On the gentle hillside overlooking the beachhead the soldiers helped the natives. Pup tents and tarpaulins kept off tropical rains until the engineers could build wooden buildings. Field kitchens served good, hot food. Pretty girls, wearing pink, mauve and yellow pajama suits, flirted with the soldiers. All the natives carried the few belongings they had managed to save--cooking utensils, extra clothing, baskets and mats.

Japanese cruelty had been mainly in deprivation and threats. Jap rationing gave every five persons a half-pound of sugar a week, each person two pounds of rice every ten days.

The Japs made efforts (sometimes successful) to keep relations good. They gave natives the same medical treatment they gave their own men, established first-aid stations for bomb victims, paid for coconut trees they destroyed. And Jap enlisted men were prohibited from entering native homes. Said one Guam native: "High Jap officers would come in and eat with us. I liked Jap equality better. The Americans made us feel as if we were inferior."

Said Manuel F. Leon Guerrero: "They let us fish, then stole our fish and sold it back. They burned all our books. They made us take off our hats and bow when they went by. At first they would take our girls away and if they would not go to bed they would slap them and then take a big stick and beat them. Then the Japs brought in their own women."

One 19-year-old Chamorro told a story that had all the melodrama of an oldtime cowboy-and-Indian two-reeler. The better-looking girls, she said, had to take turns going to the Jap officers' camp to cook--and "for other things." Her turn was due, she said, "the day the Americans came--just in time."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.