When installing my new NA Beverage, I found a couple bottles along the way. The area where my RX antennas are located has been mostly untouched since the 2nd World War. A 1953 topographic map shows no roads or residences in the area. When I first enter the jungle, the stuff I find first is recent: trash cans, roofing materials, outdoor light fixture pieces. These are all remnants from Typhoon Pongsona which in 2002 heavily damaged my housing area with 140+ MPH winds. Deeper in the woods, however, I seem to find lots of bottles lying around. Most are nondescript American beer bottles from the war time era. These bottles can be dated to 1943-1945 from the markings on the bottom.
Today, I walked my NA Beverage and poked around further in the area where I found some bottles when installing the antenna. Everywhere I looked, I found more and more. I placed my finds in an old concrete sink I found in the area which was apparently used as a dumping ground.
Also found were fragments of a ceramic bowl, which quite possibly could have been left behind by the occupying Japanese forces. I would hesitate to say this, however some of the bottles I found were quite interesting as I should explain further. Yes – at the top right of the photo is a live round. It is a .30 caliber bullet for a M1 Carbine, one of the rifles used by American troops during the liberation of Guam. I found it while digging around under the leaves and moss.
I am still attempting to identify the large bottle in the photo above. As far as I can tell, it has no markings aside from a manufacturers mark on the bottom which consists of a triangle with a dot in the middle. [December 2020 update: I later learned that these large, green glass unmarked bottles once held Japanese sake.]
I brought several bottles home for cleaning. It was only when I cleaned them up did I realize what I had found.
The two smaller Coca Cola bottles are “Wartime Cokes”. These are clear bottles, without a city mark on the bottom, but with an Owens-Corning mark dating them to 1944. These were manufactured for the American troops during the 2nd World War. The bottles aren’t green because of a shortage of copper used in the manufacturing process.
More interesting was the green bottle located in the bottom right of the top photo. Once I cleaned it up, I discovered Japanese script. It turns out that this is a Dai Nippon beer bottle, and was most certainly brought here by the Japanese occupying forces during WW2. This is the very first Japanese war relic I have found on Guam. Everything else I have found in the past was American. Additionally, I was able to piece together some bottle fragments to determine it too was a Japanese beer bottle.
How did these Japanese bottles come to be found sitting next to American coke bottles? I suspect that American troops found a Japanese cache of beer during the liberation and enjoyed a brew or two. These bottles were found in a slight rise in the terrain, which was likely used as an American encampment during and immediately following the liberation when patrols were sent out to locate the thousands of hiding Japanese scattered throughout the island.