More road explorations

Last week I was able to hike the abandoned road from what is now called FAA road (that was used to access the old FAA housing area) all the way south to Two Lovers Point. The further south I went, the more things I found dumped in the jungle. Not coincidentally, General LeMay’s HQ was supposedly near where Micronesia Mall is located today, so it would not be crazy to assume that trash generated from his HQ was dumped along this road.

The road itself is not very difficult to follow. In this area, it runs straight as an arrow in a heading of 030/210 degrees. Also, you can tell that the road was graded regularly following the liberation. There is a very obvious berm of rocks and dirt that can be seen in many locations that clearly mark where the road was located.

The photo does not do justice, but in person it is pretty obvious where the road was located. Unfortunately the road bed itself is heavily overgrown, unlike the old growth areas away from the road where trees shade the ground to help keep it clear of growth.
A compass is very helpful in areas of heavy growth where it is difficult to pick out the road edge

The further south I went, the more I began to find. It was not long until I found my first Japanese bottle for the day – a type I’d not found before!

A green Kirin Beer bottle embossed in English – different from the others I’ve found that were taller and made of brown glass.

A little further, and I stumbled across a large pile of Coco Cola bottles and some old truck tires. There are easily a couple hundred bottles here, and they are all dated 1944. I even found a couple green bottles marked San Francisco and Portland Ore. – but with the same 1944 date code.

Large pile of wartime Coke bottles

I did not have to walk far to start finding Japanese Dai Nippon beer bottles

Japanese Dai Nippon beer bottle, speckled with rain drops – the first of many I found this day
Here is a large pile of American beer bottles – all dated 1944 (easy to determine by the Duraglass date coding system on the base)
Three Dai Nippon beer bottles, a Coke bottle, and two broken Army plates found further down the road
Even found was a large area where hundreds of old vacuum tubes were dumped – did these come from B29 aircraft serviced at Harmon Field a couple miles south from here?

Eventually, I found where this abandoned road merged with a modern off road vehicle trail. I had now entered the area where the Air Force communications site was located. Here, dozens of acres of jungle were bulldozed, so nothing remains. Somewhat surprising, the merge point is close to a large dump site with bottles from WW2 up into the early 1950s. This dump is where i found some of my first Japanese beer bottles, far back into the jungle where the oldest bottles were located.

It turned out to be a very productive day! I still have additional sections of this road to explore, further north on NCTS property. I’m already trying to make time to get back out into the jungle. I am driven by not knowing what I might find around the next corner!

Very unusual but pretty wildflowers were growing in clearing along the road