Guam Invasion. After the battle of Saipan, U.S. troops invaded the island of Guam 500 miles south. I think this is a great picture and could easily have been any island in the Pacific war SEIZURE OF THE MARIANAS Harrowing WWII photos show the brutal battle fought by US Marines to liberate the island after it was invaded by Japan Stunning pictures show the American struggle to reclaim island of Guam after it was seized by Japan in 1941 The Americans lost more than 1,700 men during the fierce fighting and the Japanese lost more than 18,000 Guam was settled by seafarers from South East Asia in about 2,000BC but Europeans discovered it in 1521 The Spanish claimed it in 1565 and colonised it in the 17th century but the US captured the island in 1898 Now bustling Guam - threatened by North Korea - home to over 160,000 people with a booming tourist trade Spectacular black-and-white photographs showing American military campaigns in the Pacific island of Guam have emerged as North Korea threatens to annihilate the territory with nuclear missiles.  The images show US Marines in action during the 1944 battle to retrieve Guam, which was occupied by Japan in 1941.  Soldiers can be seen bandaged-up on stretchers after the savage fighting that left about 20,000 people killed on both sides, while American ships and high-ranking personnel are also photographed.  Guam is thought to have first been settled in about 2,000BC but wasn't discovered by Europeans until Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived on the island in 1521.  It soon became part of the Spanish Empire and remained so until, during the Spanish-American War of 1898, the USA captured it with a single ship. After an eventful history under American rule - and three years under Japanese imperial rule - Guam has evolved into a flourishing economy of more than 160,000 people famous for its beautiful beaches and excellent food. But modern citizens of the island are faced with fresh anxiety over the nuclear threat from North Korea as Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-un makes Guam a target for his nuclear weapons and US President Donald Trump threatens remorseless retaliation.   +22 Pictured: A US Marine is given water as he lies on a stretcher with bandages covering his wounds after seeing action during the 1944 Battle of Guam. The island Guam is thought to have first been settled by humans in 2,000BC when people from South East Asia managed to get there in small boats. The original inhabitants are known as the Chamorro. They flourished for nearly three and a half millennia before the island was discovered by Europeans when Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived on the island in 1521 +22 Pictured: Japanese POWs bow their heads after hearing Emperor Hirohito announce Japan's unconditional surrender in August 1945. Guam was claimed by Spain in 1565 and colonised in the 17th century, but the territory was lost to the USA during the 1898 Spanish-American War. It was envisioned as something of a 'Gibraltar in the Pacific' but was left insufficiently fortified until its capture in 1941 by the Japanese. Three years of tyranny came to an end in 1944 when the Americans liberated the island +22 Pictured: Stretchers abandoned on a road in the Nidual River valley leading to the Third Marine Division field hospital, which was attacked in a surprise dawn raid by the Japanese in 1944. The history of the island after its liberation from Japanese rule has been revolutionary. It went from being a military outpost - America's 'only permanent aircraft carrier - to being a civilian-run territory after 1950. In 1952, all of the islanders were granted US citizenship, and in the 1960s visitors were no longer required to obtain a security clearance to visit - clearing the way for a tourism-fuelled economic boom +22 Pictured: The US Coast Guard Cutter Sassafrass seen close to Guam during the Second World War. Though the island is still essential to the American military, it has become increasingly focused on tourism in recent decades. One consequence of this openness has been a shift in the island's demographics, with only 37 per cent of the population now from the original Chamorro ethnic group. The next-biggest group is Filipino, accounting for 26 per cent of the population  +22 Pictured: US Coast Guard Cutter Basswood, Marianas Section, Victor Wharf, Agana Heights, Guam. The island is an unincorporated United States territory, but in 1982 there was a referendum on its status. Ultimately, 73 per cent of voters chose to see the island become a commonwealth, but despite the referendum it remains an unincorporated territory +22 Pictured: Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D Leahy, who said in 1939 that an airbase must be developed on Guam before it can offer any value either militarily or commercially. Calls for an increase in the defences of Guam long went ignored, and in 1941, the Japanese Empire seized the territory with a small force of ships and about 6,000 men. The Americans had only 547 men and a few small boats to defend the island +22 Pictured: Two US soldiers plant an American flag attached to a boat hook on the beach at Guam, just eight minutes after U.S. Marines and Army assault troops landed on the Central Pacific island on July 20, 1944. The Americans lost more than 1,700 men in the fight to reclaim the island and the Japanese lost over 18,000 +22 Pictured: Jeannette Pickering Rankin in 1939, the first woman to hold national office in the United States. She argued against the fortification of Guam +22 Pictured: A Water Buffalo vessel loaded with Marines and bound for Tinian Island near Guam makes its way through a churning sea. Nearly 60,000 men were deployed by the USA in the battle to reclaim Guam  +22 Pictured: Rev Asbury Smith, another official who argued against fortifying the island. He represented the Maryland Keep Out of War Congress +22 Pictured: Marines walk by the wreckage of a Japanese dive bomber on their way to Agat beach, Guam +22 Pictured: 221 Japanese prisoners of war are sprawled on the deck of a ship. They were being brought to a Coast Guard manned troop transport at Guam for transfer to Pearl Harbor. Three years previously, the Japanese Empire had attacked the US naval base of Pearl Harbor and brought the country into the war. It was just a day later than Japanese forces invaded Guam  +22 Pictured: American actor Danny Kaye (centre) put his hand on the forehead of the wounded Bob Comish as Rear Admiral CB Jones looks on. The photograph was taken in 1967, during the Vietnam War, when Guam was once again used for military operations  +22 Pictured: Guam today, a beautiful island noted for its stunning beaches and varied cuisine. It is the largest island in Micronesia - about a third of the size of London - and attracts around a million Japanese tourists every year thanks to its consistently hot weather of between 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. It also features gigantic hotel complexes, luxury shopping malls and plenty of chapels for the perfect Pacific Ocean wedding +22 Pictured: Guam today. Because of its long history of colonisation by the Americans, Spanish and original South East Asian settlers, it has a varied cuisine. You can get chorizo sausages, sushi or classic American favourites - as well as plenty of fresh coconut water and Guam-style barbecued meat  +22 Pictured: The magnificent Guam coastline. The tourism economy on the island suffered after the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, which particularly affected Japan - the country with most pronounced fondness for the American territory. To add to that setback, the island was hit by devastating typhoons in 1997 and 2002 +22 Pictured: Hotels overlooking turquoise waters and beautiful beaches on Guam. The tourism industry has recovered somewhat after the troubles of the 1990s and early 2000s. Not only are Japanese tourists beginning to return to the island for holidays, but the US military has also increased spending on Guam +22 +22 Pyongyang's volatile dictator (right) warned he was 'carefully examining' plans to make 'an enveloping fire' around the US island of Guam - hours after Donald Trump (left) had told the hermit state it faces 'fire and fury like the world has never seen' over its nuclear programme +22 Kim Jong-un's officials organised a mass rally in the centre of Pyongyang yesterday to protest against tough new UN sanctions North Korea holds massive rally to protest UN sanctions Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:50 Previous Play Skip Unmute Current Time0:50 / Duration Time1:21 Fullscreen Need Text SHARE THIS MORE VIDEOS Japanese Prime Minister welcomes UN sanctions on … North Korea holds massive artillery drill in late April North Korea holds rally in support of the army Tillerson discusses North Korea sanctions, Russia rel… U.N. Security Council sanctions target North Kore… US sanctions North Korea over human rights violations +22 The world is holding its breath amid fears the crisis over North Korea could spiral into global war after Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un made unprecedented threats to trade devastating missile strikes +22 Pictured: A B-1B Lancer bombers taking off from Guam air base

Dog-Day + 0. This was the plan at 6:05 am June 15, 1944 when the order was given to board the landing craft. 8,000 U.S. Marines started the 20 minute trip to the beaches of Saipan. By the end of the first day nearly 2,000 were dead. Today few people know the color names of these beaches and even what actually happened there.

76 December 12, 1944: After being hit in a Japanese air raid, a B-29 Superfortress explodes in ball of fire, while crewmen of the U.S. air base try to fight the inferno on Saipan, Mariana Islands. (AP Photo) #   77 December 1944: U.S. soldiers at the Saipan airbase, in the Mariana Islands, watch as a B-29 Superfortress takes off for an air raid on the Japanese mainland. (AP Photo) #   78 Feb. 1945: U.S. paratroopers of the 503rd Paratroop Regiment float to earth on Corregidor, a rocky island strategically located at the entrance of Manila Bay on Luzon Island, Philippines during World War II. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps) #   79 Feb. 13, 1945: Two Yank Infantrymen of the hard fighting 37th American division, climb through some Japanese barbed wire during street fighting in Manila in the Philippines. (AP Photo)

Tinian Invasion After the Battle of Saipan the 2nd and 4th Marine divisions invaded Tinian island two miles south. For the 2nd Marines this was the fourth beach invasion in 18 months. American naval warships and landing craft staged a fake landing on the southern beaches of Tinian, which was the only logical invasion location. The Japanese pulled troops from around Tinian and sent them south for their defense of the island. Troop transports then returned to a small beach in the north of Tinian where the Marines simply walked to shore. It was a near perfect beach invasion. Beach Bunker 3 A Japanese WWII bunker on invasion beach in Saipan. In the morning on June 15, 1944 tens of thousands of U.S. Marines landed on this beach at the start of the three week battle of Saipan.   Guam in the Mariana Islands is pictured on Jul. 27, 1944, during U.S./Japanese warfare March 10, 1945: U.S. troops in the Pacific islands continued to find enemy holdouts long after the main Japanese forces had either surrendered or disappeared. Guam was considered cleared by August 12, 1944, but parts of the island were still dangerous half a year later. Here, patrolling Marines pass a dead Japanese sniper. These Marines may belong to the Fifty-second Defense Battalion, one of two black units sent to the Pacific.   The precipice in the picture above is known as Suicide Cliff, off which over 20,000 Japanese civilians jumped to their deaths to comply with their fascist emperor's desire - mothers flinging their babies off the cliff first or in their arms as they jumped. Anyone reluctant or refused, such as the Okinawan or Korean slaves, were shoved off at gunpoint by the Jap soldiers.  Then the soldiers themselves proceeded to hurl themselves into the ocean to drown off a sea cliff afterwards called Banzai Cliff.  Of the 31,000 Japanese soldiers on Saipan , the Marines killed 25,000, 5,000 jumped off Banzai Cliff, and only the remaining thousand were taken prisoner. The extent of this demented fanaticism is very hard for any civilized mind to fathom - especially when it is devoted not to anything noble but barbarian evil instead.  The vast brutalities inflicted by the Japanese on their conquered and colonized peoples of China, Korea, the Philippines and throughout their "Greater East Asia   Near the Bird Sanctuary. Ashore on Saipan a Japanese soldier, member of the 9th Tank Regiment, wrote of the strike in his diary: At a little after 1300, I was awakened by the air raid alarm and immediately led all men into the trench. Scores of enemy Grumman fighters began strafing and bombing Aslito airfield and Garapan. For about two hours, the enemy planes ran amuck and finally left leisurely amidst the unparallelledly inaccurate antiaircraft fire. All we could do was watch helplessly. At night we went to extinguish the mountain fires which had been caused by gun fire. They were finally brought completely under control. In spite of the magnitude of the attack, the Japanese command on Saipan apparently did not realize on the 11th that this was the prologue to a full-size invasion. General Saito felt that in "the event of a battle occurring at the shore, there would be a great danger of the direction of the battle being hindered by an immediate interruption of communication.   Marines land on coral reefs during U.S./Japanese warfare, Guam, Mariana Islands, Jul. 21, 1944.

BEWARE FALSE FLAG RALLY AROUND THE PRESIDENT

Trump’s presidency is in deep trouble, any fool or Trump voter can see that clearly now, it is only a matter of time before someone in a position of authority delves into Trump’s financial history and opens up the whole can of worms, the money laundering for the Russian mafia, the election interference by the Israelis, US-Israeli traitors and perhaps the Russians too on behalf of that mafia, all of it is going to come out eventually.

While the rats are scrambling to get off the sinking ship of Trump, the fat cats who own Trump will no doubt have been thinking of ways to save the orange buffoon’s ass and prolong the control over the White House that they enjoy as long as Trump is in residence.

The obvious solution is to rely on the traditional ‘rallying round the flag’ that a large portion of the American sheeple can be relied upon to perform whenever their nation goes to war, all that is needed is to supply a suitable war.

B-52s parked at Andersen AFB, Guam

Such wars have usually been manufactured by carrying out false flag attacks, and it looks to me like Guam and it’s US military base are a prime candidate for such an attack – base goes boom, a load of US servicemen die, North Korea is blamed and Trump gets to act like the avenging angel as he sends the bombers and missiles towards Pyongyang.

Don’t think they would slaughter US servicemen just to try to save Trump’s ailing presidency? They killed 261 US marines in their Beirut barracks back in the early 80s, to name just one prior instance….

Another factor to consider is that the US has been out of the war business for a decade now, which hurts the profits of the billionaires that own the big defence contractors, those billionaires all contributed significant sums to Trump’s election campaign, so they will be pushing their pussy grabbing buddy to do something to boost their bottom lines, preferably something that requires lots of expensive aircraft, bombs and missiles….

The ‘Trump Effect’ is already visible – Lockheed-Martin stocks are up in the wake of the orange buffoon’s ‘Fire and Fury’ response to Pyongyang’s threat to hit Guam:

Lockheed Martin Stocks Rise as Trump Threatens ‘Fire and Fury’

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CNN

North Korea threatens strike on Guam

North Korea’s military is “examining the operational plan” to strike areas around the US territory of Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic missiles, state-run news agency KCNA said early Wednesday local time.

Specifically, the statement mentioned a potential strike on Andersen Air Force Base designed “to send a serious warning signal to the US.”

The base is one of two on the Pacific island, which are the closest bases on US soil to North Korea, and represent the westernmost tip of the country’s military might.

The North Korea comments were published after US President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang that if it continued to threaten the US, it would “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

‘No threat to our island’

Guam’s governor, Eddie Baza Calvo, released a video address Wednesday, reassuring the island’s residents that there was no change in the threat level resulting from North Korea.

“I want to reassure the people of Guam that currently there is no threat to our island or the Marianas,” he said.

“I also want to remind national media that Guam is American soil and we have 200,000 Americans in Guam and the Marianas. We are not just a military installation,” he added.

Speaking from Guam, journalist Robert Santos said local reaction to the threats was mixed.

“Some people are who are confident we are safe with the US bases here and others who are not so sure,” he said.

“Some people believe (Trump and Kim) are clashing personalities and they speak recklessly. But here are some people who believe… that we are completely safe regardless of what happens.”

However, he added that an attack on Guam “won’t just be against the US military, it will be against the people.”

Key military installation

Dubbed the “tip of the spear,” Guam is a key to the US military’s forward deployed presence in the Pacific and is home to thousands of American service members and their families.

Its importance has declined since the Second World War, given the creation of military bases in Japan and South Korea, says Carl Schuster, a Hawaii Pacific University professor and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center. Now it is essentially a staging area, which sees rotations of bomber groups coming through.

“Guam is the western most US territory that has major military bases. If you (were to) pull (the US) out of Japan and South Korea it’s the next best location in the Pacific,” says Schuster.

While it is around 1,500 miles further out from the Korean peninsula than its next closest base in Japan, it’s “still strategic because of its location” and its ability to host long-range bombers.

There are, however, political complications in launching attacks from US bases hosted by allies closer to Pyongyang, should the US retaliate to Kim’s latest threats.

Should US allies refuse to let the military to launch strikes from their territory, Guam would be the most likely place from which to launch airstrikes on North Korea, Schuster says, adding that this is how Kim will regard it.

A US attack using its bases on Japan’s main islands or Okinawa, for example, would bring Japan into any conflict, says Schuster.

However, “Guam’s importance is reliant on the behavior of our allies. If South Korea and Japan say we could (launch attacks) out of there, taking out Guam becomes almost meaningless.”

North Korea’s Hwasong ballistic missiles can hit Guam.

Defensive shield

Guam’s Homeland Security Advisor George Charfauros told CNN that despite Guam’s strategic importance and the North Korean threats to strike it, he remains confident of the island’s defenses.

“They’ve slowly developed their capabilities but we stand in high confidence with the US (Defense Department’s) ability to not only defend Guam and the surrounding areas but also the continental US… There are several layers of ballistic missile defense.”

One of these systems, he said, is THAAD, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, which is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate ballistic missiles.

“Two years ago a permanent deployment of that missile system was placed on Guam,” he said.

He added that the US “routinely uses” Aegis-equipped warships around the island chain of the Marianas, of which Guam is the largest.

The US Department of Defense reiterated its capability to counter North Korean aggression.

“We always maintain a high state of readiness and have the capabilities to counter any threat, to include those from North Korea,” spokesman Johnny Michael told CNN.

Escalating tensions

North Korea ramped up the rhetoric in a new statement issued Wednesday, sourced to a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), which said a “preemptive strike is no longer the monopoly of the US.”

Pyongyang’s initial threat to Guam came after the US flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula on Tuesday local time.

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers flew from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for a 10-hour mission near Japan, the East China Sea and the Korean peninsula, August 7.

The bombers flew out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam as part of the US Air Force’s “continuous bomber presence,” according to an Pacific Air Forces spokesman. The bombers were joined by Japanese and South Korean aircraft during their mission.

“In the morning of August 8 the air pirates of Guam again appeared in the sky above South Korea to stage a mad-cap drill simulating an actual war,” the KCNA statement read.

The flights with Japan and South Korea were designed to demonstrate solidarity between the nations, the US said.

Pyongyang did not develop its nuclear capability to be the aggressor in a war with the US, says CNN Military Analyst Rick Francona.

However, its most recent statements suggest that North Korea is taking a more aggressive stance — suggesting that it might attack before the US has a chance to strike.

“The North Koreans did not develop their nuclear weapons to drop on the US,” Francona told CNN. “They developed these weapons to prevent an attack from the US. Or at least that’s the rhetoric coming from Pyongyang.

“Now you’re looking at a possible strike on American territory (like) Guam, and also the mainland of the US.”