Siapan The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands After Christmas 2002

For the Winter holiday's, myself, my brother Nathan and his fiancee Salome took a trip to Micronesia to visit the island of Siapan. The island is located north of Guam and east of the Philippines between the Pacific Ocean and the Philippine Sea. The island is small, only 8 miles long and 2 miles across. During World War Two, the island witnessed one of the most bloody battles in the Pacific Theatre and was part of the start of the American island hopping to Japan thousands of kilometres north. Instead of surrender thousands of Japanese civilians commited suicide by jumping into the ocean from the island's Northern cliffs. Thousands of Japanese troops jumped from what is now known as Banzia cliff to solid rock below. Aside from the history lesson, it was pleasantly hot and had beutiful beaches and jungles.

Nathan and Salome on the top-left and of course me on the top-right acting near-normal. The cliff beside this caption is part of Banzia cliff where thousands of Japanese troops commited "honourable" suicude instead of facing capture. Within the caves in the cliffs many Japanese troops remain hidden and continued to plague American troops well after the end of the war as these troops had no idea the war had ended. There are still caves where Japanese commited seppeku and sealed themselves in. Time capsules now of another age.

To the right is Suicide Cliff. Here many Japanese civilians living on the island commited suicide in order to prevent capture and torture from American troops. The Japanese High-Command told all Japanese to commit suicide as the American troops would commit aweful acts of torture upon them. As these cliffs are not very high, many Japanese would in fact survive and be treated quite respectibly. Nonetheless thousands still perished.

To the right is Banzia Cliff with a statue of Budda in the foreground.  The deep black hole in the cliff-face is from American Naval bombardments during the last few days of Japanese fighting. Below are the graves for those civilians who perished on Suicude Cliff.

Page Two click NEXT