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A Letter from your Host at Chamorro.com
December 2001
Hafa adai, hamyo todos,
This is Herman Perez of Chamorro.com. I'm in the midst of reading Bruce Petty's Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War, just recently published by McFarland & Company, Inc. Although I have not finished reading it, I felt it incumbent upon me to alert those Chamorros, Carolinians and others who visit this site to this very interesting book.
As host of Chamorro. com, I've received literally hundreds of inquiries re our Mariana Islands, Chamorro culture and tradition, our language and on and on. We have received messages from all over the world and on more than one occasion we've even been asked, what is a Chamorro? All in all we, the Chamorro.com crew have enjoyed doing what we can to make the site interesting and pleasurable to those who visit us, and admittedly it involves a bit of work. We don't profess to know and have all the answers and, as some of you know, we can't please everyone. Nevertheless we'll continue to be here, make changes when necessary and keep striving to make the site better.
As we sort through all the messages, announcements, information, jokes and so forth, we notice that a great deal of interest is expressed time and again by so many of the younger Chamorro generation about the past. To know about the past could conceivably be extremely difficult or very easy. Either way, one has to start someplace and I believe Mr. Petty's book is a good place to start. As in the book's title, "Oral Histories", it is exactly that and what better way to know about the past, even if it is only the recent past and only a small part of the past, than to hear about it from those who were there and in their own words.
Chamorro.com is not involved in any way in the marketing of the above mentioned book. I have taken it upon myself to bring to the attention of all those visiting this site Mr. Petty's book as a continuation of our endeavor to improve Chamorro.com for your enjoyment. Please see the review of it below. Best wishes para todos hamyo in this The Holy Season and the coming New Year.
Si Herman Perez
by Bruce M. Petty
The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was the turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan and the end of the war. The island was a blaze of fire and steel for over three weeks in the summer of 1944. Visible reminders of the devastation still exist-one can find human remains scattered on the jungle floor or in caves throughout the island. Emotional reminders still exist as well, for both the soldiers and the civilians who survived the battle.
In this work, the survivors of Saipan-including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war-have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author introduces the volume with a history of Saipan and arranges the oral histories by location: Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam in the first half, and by branch of service in the second half.
About the Author
Bruce M. Petty worked as a nuclear medicine technologist for fifteen years before moving to Saipan in 1995 to research this book. Five years later, he moved back to his home in Fairfield, California.
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