North Korea crisis latest chapter of Guam's history in America's military conflicts

From its role in the bombing of Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, to the relocation of Kurdish refugees from Iraq in the 1990s, Guam has been at the center of several internationally significant and historic events since the end of World War II.

This month's North Korean missile crisis, in which North Korea threatened to fire missiles toward Guam, is the latest example of the world turning its attention to the tiny U.S. territory near the equator.

Guam became a U.S. territory in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, and it played a pivotal role in the Pacific during the final year of World War II and in the decades that followed, said University of Guam history professor Anne Perez Hattori.

“What happened after World War II is Guam became heavily militarized. Before World War II, the central powers were in the Atlantic, … but afterward, it really shifted to the Pacific, especially with the rise of Communist nations,” Hattori said. “After World War II, the Pacific became more prominent in world politics, so Guam became very important.”

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The 210-square-mile island — sometimes referred to as the "tip of the spear" because of its strategic location and military assets — is home to more than 160,000 U.S. citizens and is host to a substantial military presence at Naval Base Guam and Andersen Air Force Base. Roughly 7,000 American military personnel currently reside on island with their families.

Hattori said the U.S. specifically chose Guam to establish a naval base because Apra Harbor, with its deep water, was a prime location compared to harbors at nearby islands. It also provided the U.S. military the best path between Hawaii and the Asian continent, she said.

“If the U.S. wasn’t here, most of the countries wouldn’t care about us,” Hattori said. “No one is threatening those other islands.”

Guam's role in international military affairs continues to this day, as the island is serving as a relief valve to ease tensions related to the large U.S. military presence in Okinawa.

Preparations are under way to relocate about 5,000 U.S. Marines from bases in Okinawa to a new base that will be built on Guam, in the northern village of Dededo, on existing military owned property.

The Navy last Friday announced that a contract has been awarded to start building roads and other infrastructure for the new base. The Marines are scheduled to start arriving on Guam in about eight years, military officials said.

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More than 50 years ago, Guam was key to the U.S. bombing campaign in Vietnam, as the main airfield for the B-52s involved in Operation Arc Light.

The first mission, of 27 bombers, took off from the island in June 1965. The operation ended in 1973, and the first Arc Light memorial was created at Andersen in 1974, dedicated to the dozens of airmen killed during the campaign.

Island residents also supported the war effort, in sharp contrast to the prevailing attitude in other parts of the country, Hattori said.

“Many Chamorros enlisted. Whereas the rest of the United States was protesting, on Guam, no one was protesting,” she said. “For the U.S. it was such an unpopular war, but on Guam people were volunteering to go.”

Guam will always be remembered as the safe haven for more than 100,000 South Vietnamese who sought refuge on the island on their way to new lives in the United States in 1975.

As all signs showed that Saigon would fall in April 1975, the United States began a massive mission to evacuate tens of thousands of South Vietnamese to Guam — a military operation that was called Operation New Life.

Operation New Life in 1975 involved two overlapping phases. In phase I, more than 111,000 refugees transited through Guam during one of the largest evacuations in modern history. Phase I lasted from April 23 to Aug. 26, 1975. During phase II, the focus shifted to the repatriation of 1,546 refugees to their homeland by ship. Phase II lasted from May 3 to Oct. 16, 1975.

The first planeload of refugees landed at 4:01 p.m. April 23, 1975 at Andersen Air Force Base.

By May 7, a dozen refugee camps were operating. The largest, Tent City at Orote Point, had 30,427 refugees. Asan had 5,632 refugees and Andersen's Tin City had 3,297 refugees, while another 3,175 were spread among other camps.

About 3,000 refugees a day were moving to stateside camps and about 4,000 were arriving on Guam by air, 6,822 had arrived by sea and another 14,000 were en route in other ships.

On May 13, Guam received the 100,000th refugee and the next day the resident evacuee population peaked at 50,430, a more than 50-percent increase in Guam's normal population at the time. On May 15, Tent City hit its population peak of 39,331.

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The island's role as a processing point for refugees continued in September 1996, during Operation Pacific Haven.

During that operation, 6,636 Kurdish refugees were evacuated to Guam after fleeing their homeland in northern Iraq in fear of leader Saddam Hussein's security forces. The refugees were brought to Guam to begin the process of political asylum in the United States and other countries. They stayed at the military's Andersen South housing area, which was not being used.

The last group of Kurds left in April 1997, and as they boarded the plane, some stopped to take pictures of military personnel they had befriended.

Four years later, Guam was the first United States soil for crew members of a U.S. Navy spy plane who were released after being detained by the Chinese government.

The 24 members of the Navy EP-3E made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island following an April 1, 2001, mid-air collision with a Chinese military jet that killed the jet's pilot.

Their 11 days in captivity ended after Chinese officials said President Bush apologized — a claim U.S. officials described as Chinese propaganda.

The crew's arrival and brief stay on Guam on April 12, 2001, brought international attention to Guam, including representatives from CNN and other major news organizations. Some local politicians were interviewed live on worldwide television.

Caught in the middle

The tensions this month between the U.S. and North Korea are a reminder of how many Chamorro people felt when Guam was caught in the middle of America’s conflict with Japan at the start of World War II, Hattori said.

“The similarity with that is basically you have this global conflict that has nothing to do with us at all and we’re caught in the middle,” Hattori said. “For some people, this issue with North Korea is reopening those wounds.”