Spring Break Pictures 6

The teensy plane I flew on from Tinian to Saipan. I got to sit in the co-pilot's seat!
A rusty bit of boat in the bay on Tinian.

Another rusty boat on Tinian.

The memorial at Suicide Cliff. On August 1st, 1944, many Japanese and Okinawans copmmitted suice rather than surrender to the Americans during the battle for Tinian.

The church tower in San Jose.

Spring Break Pictures 5

My rental car, stuck in the sand, at Chulu Beach. It's pretty embarassing that a kid from the coast forgot that front-wheel drive cars and soft sand don't mix!
Japanese air raid shelters, again.

Obviously, the air operations building. First it was Japanese and then the Americans took it over after they invaded.

Japanese air administration building now.

Japanese air administration building then.

Spring Break Picture 4

Japanese air raid shelters.
Japanese power plant now.

Sign for the Japanese power plant.

Japanese bomb storage and fuel dump.

The sign for the bomb storage & fuel dump

Spring Break Pictures 3

Tinian's biggest claim to fame is that it's where the 2 atomic bombs were loaded before being flown to Japan. Here are the 2 signs at the 2 loading pits.

Inside the pit (which is encased in glass now)

Inside the pit.

The glass around this pit got broken somehow.

Spring Break Pictures 2

Some sort of rusty gun thing on Chulu Beach, the beach used as an invasion beach by American Marines in July of 1944.
The view of Saipan from the northern most point of Tinian.

Runway Able, one of 4 runways built by the Americans. At 8500 feet long and 200 feet wide, these runways easily accommodated the B29 Super fortree they were built for. In 1945, North Field Tinian was the busiest and biggest airfield in the world.

At the blow hole: Natural phenomenon made by weather and waves carving a cave under the limestone ledge over the years.

Spring Break Pictures 1

Tinian was strongly affected by WWII, being taken over by the Japanese and then the Americans. There are still leftovers from the war on the island.
The Hinode American Memorial, which is believed to have been build by Americans to honor those who were killed in the battle for Tinian.

The sign for the NKK Shrine Trail. NKK is Nanyo Kohatsu Kaisha, the company that developed sugar plantations on Tinian in the prewar years. NKK also built the Shinto shrine, in the picture below.

The Old Japanese Communications Center: This building was used for inter-island communications during WWII.

For spring break I went to the Northern Mariana Islands, particularly Guam and Tinian. The islands are beautiful and I had a great time! My dad said he wanted lots of pictures, so here they are. All the information in the captions came from my Tinian map I got when I rented my car!