Saipan Is The Most Beautiful Place In America You've Never Heard Of

[yuiyoshida]

There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, about a federal drug agent who was stationed on a tropical island near Guam — and every time she called headquarters back in D.C., the conversation would begin like this.

“I’m calling from Saipan. Yes, we have an office there. Because it’s part of America.”

Indeed, Saipan is part of America — it’s the most populated of the Northern Mariana Islands, an insular chain with a complicated history that became administered by the U.S. after World War II, and has been a U.S. commonwealth since 1978.

People born there are U.S. citizens. The official currency is the U.S. dollar. As of 2009, the Northern Mariana Islands has had a representative — non-voting, like all the territories’ representatives, but still there — in the U.S. Congress.

Indeed again, as everyone who’s lived there can tell you, most mainland Americans don’t know any of that. Regrettably, the ones who do are probably aware of the island — which is in Micronesia, just north of Guam, south of Japan, east of the Philippines and west of Hawaii — due to its tainted reputation stemming from a political scandal involving a certain Texan who later appeared on Dancing With The Stars.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/04/saipan_n_4603094.html

[panader0]

1. Great post---Thanks

[Best_man23]

2. I know about Saipan from Two Family Members

My Dad was on a ship that was part of the task force that liberated Guam and Saipan during World War II.

My wife was stationed on Guam when she was in the service during the 90s and visited Saipan a number of times on R&R.

My wife shared pictures she took when she visited Saipan. The Marianas Islands are a paradise.

[WinkyDink]

3. Your thread title is the most accurate ever on DU! Stunning scenery!

[yuiyoshida]

4. and you don't even need a passport to get there...

just fly out of SFO...to Honolulu and than straight on to Saipan...

[trackfan]

6. I think my dad went there on a naval tour.

He kind of lucked out with his military service (whether by design or not I don't know). He was born in 1922 - prime age for service in WWII. Wasn't in until 1943; then in the Navy stateside until finally shipping out after the war was over. I think his tour took him to Saipan; then on to Yokosuka, Japan; and Tsingtao, China.

[First Speaker]

7. My uncle was one of the Marines who invaded Saipan in 1944...

...and he was pissed the rest of his life because that battle was so little known. He always claimed it was more important than the contemporaneous Normandy invasion...

[Yupster]

8. I would have liked to have heard his explanation for that contention

I would argue that Normandy kept West Germany and even France from Soviet occupation.

I don't know what Saipan accomplished other than another stepping stone toward an already defeated Japan.

Would like to hear his explanation though.

[First Speaker]

13. Hey--Pacific veterans felt their war was the "real" one...

...just as ETO guys, like my Dad, felt theirs was. He had been there, so I never argued the point with him...

[wishstar]

10. Very important and very tragic- My uncle was killed there in 1944

My uncle survived the major fighting of July, but was killed on a Sept 1944 inland patrol to capture Japanese who were holding out in the interior jungle. Before enlisting in 1941, he worked on projects with Civilan Conservation Corps, including building Hoover Dam.

"Victory at Saipan did not end the war, but it shortened it. America gained, in exchange for 16,000 casualties, a solid foothold in the heart of the Japanese "Absolute Sphere of National Defense." Ahead lay Guam and Tinian, then bloody Peleliu, two Jima and Okinawa. But Navy Seabees were already working on Saipan's airfields. Five months after the capture of Saipan, a massive fleet of B-29s would take off from U.S. air bases in the Marianas for the first direct bombing of Tokyo since the Doolittle raid of 1942. With the fall of Saipan, the Japanese could sense the inevitable. The Tojo cabinet quit in disgrace. Emperor Hirohito said, "Hell is upon us." he was prophetic."

https://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/world-war-ii-50-years-ago-saipans-bloody-legacy

Not only massive combat casualties on both sides but also many suicides of Japanese soldiers and civilians who jumped off cliffs.

[onethatcares]

9. we gotta get some

coal mines going there or a bunch of oil drilling platforms.

We shirley don't need any of that nice stuff. Geez.

[babylonsister]

11. It is beautiful!

I lived on Guam for a year and visited Saipan. I remember this story...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Cliff


Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II.

Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where thousands of Japanese civilians and Japanese soldiers committed suicide by jumping to their deaths in 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States, as Japanese propaganda emphasizing brutal treatment of Japanese such as American mutilation of Japanese war dead. Many Japanese feared that 'American devils [were] raping and devouring Japanese women and children.'[2] The precise number of suicides there is not known, but has been estimated at around 8,000 deaths.[3] A contemporary correspondent, praising their actions as 'the finest act of the Shōwa period', described them as 'the pride of Japanese women.'[4]

By 1976, a park and peace memorial was in place and the location had become a pilgrimage destination, particularly for visitors from Japan.[5] In that year, 9-acre (3.6 ha) of the site were listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.[1]

The cliff is, along with the airfield and Banzai Cliff, a coastal cliff where suicides also took place, par

[bluepen]

12. Great, informative post. Thank you.