Weather was beautiful this past weekend – sunny and low humidity. Perfect for doing some exploring.

I decided to revisit the Japanese positions I had discovered last weekend in the rain (my previous post). I brought my son and his best friend along also. It is nice to have some company because it can get spooky at times when alone. The kids wanted to bring my metal detector, so we brought that along too.

First order of business was to relocate the gun pits, and mark their position with GPS.

I’m still not sure what this position was supposed to defend, since the Japanese focused their defensive efforts on the beaches. I suspect this was to be an anti-aircraft position, due to the depth of the holes and the fact that they were round (allowing 360 degree arc toward the sky). [December 2020 – there appears to have been a Japanese airstrip under construction just east and north of the old FAA housing area.  This construction was not completed when the liberation took place in June 1944.]

Around the eastern most pit (number 1), which is closest to an abandoned WW2 dirt road, is evidence of American troops – notably several 75mm howitzer shell casings. The fact that there are no American bottles around tells me that this was a short-term American position, likely on the 6th or 7th of August 1944 as the American troops pushed the front lines northward.

The other gun pits are surrounded primarily with Japanese beer bottles (DaiNippon), with only a small scattering of American bottles.

The kids played around with the metal detector, and gave up after a little while. There are a number of shell craters around, from artillery hits. All the kids were finding were bits of shrapnel laying around. Later, while they took a break, I explored an old burn pit filled with broken bottles, and found some bits from a Japanese naval gas mask, but nothing exciting.

After a couple hours of exploring, we headed home. Not much to see other than a few Japanese beer bottles and the positions themselves, but it is so heavily overgrown in this area, it is worth revisiting and exploring more closely in the future.

 

 

I have been taking a break from radio – at least the antenna building aspect – and other than DXing on 160 and 80m I have been playing around with other hobbies. I absolutely love exploring the jungle and looking for WW2 remnants, and since it is now the dry season, the weather is ideal for it.

Of course today it was rainy but I still went out anyway. Bringing my Nexus tablet and its GPS functionality, I can record my tracks and hike to waypoints I have made with Google Earth. This allows me to explore areas deeper in the jungle than I’ve been to before.

Today’s trip was to an area I’ve visited many times before, but this time I went further back into an area that looked promising on Google Earth. First I wanted to locate a piece of UXO (unexploded ordnance) and mark it’s position so it can be properly disposed of by the Navy’s EOD.

Once I had marked the position of the UXO, I headed deeper into the jungle, into new territory for me. It did not take long to start finding stuff.

Interestingly, I did not find any other American WW2 debris around – no American bottles or anything else for that matter. Likely this was an artillery position set up quickly during the liberation of Guam in early August as the front lines pushed northwards.

Further in, I started finding Japanese bottles.

I also found a number of dug out areas in the ground. About 20ft in diameter and 4-5 feet deep, these looked to be Japanese defensive positions. They were too neat to be bomb craters, and were not dug by American bulldozers. This was probably to be a Japanese anti aircraft position.

All around these positions are scattered Japanese beer bottles.

The fact that I found only Japanese and no American bottles tells me this was a Japanese position. It is quite likely that these defensive positions were dug for 25MM anti aircraft cannon, based on the size and depth of the pits. Whether or not cannon were ever empaced here, I don’t know. I looked in some of the pits but found nothing. Due to the heavy growth, it’s difficult to see more than 10 or 15ft in any direction. I’ll definitely have to come back out here and explore some more!