English

Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam

LibriVox recording of Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam by Cyril J. O'Brien. Read in English by Aaron Bennett. Guam became a territorial possession of the United States with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1899, ending the Spanish-American War. Earlier, on 21 June 1898, First Lieutenant John Twiggs “Handsome Jack” Myers had led a party of Marines ashore from the protected cruiser Charleston to accept the surrender of the Spanish authorities. Thus began a long Marine presence on Guam. The island, southernmost of the Marianas chain, was discovered by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, but not occupied until 1688 when a small mission was established there by a Spanish priest and soldiers. When control of the rest of the Mariana Islands was given to Japan as a mandate power in 1919, Guam became an isolated and highly vulnerable American outpost in a Japanese sea. This American territory, 35 miles long, nine miles at its widest and four at its narrowest, shaped like a peanut fell quickly and easily in the early morning of 10 December 1941. With the opening of a two-hour, ever-increasing bombardment by six battleships, nine cruisers, a host of destroyers and rocket ships, layin

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