Word: guam
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...July 10 the U.S. fleet was softening up Guam for the invasion that was soon to come. But not all men on all ships were intent on the bombardment. On one warship, close in toward shore, sailormen had picked up the flashing of sunlight from a mirror. They watched, fascinated. What they were seeing was the end of one of the most extraordinary personal experiences...
...could it be? Guam's garrison had been taken by the Japs almost 31 months before. The ship put over a small boat. The man on the beach waded out into the surf to meet it. In the strangely soft voice of a man whose vocal cords have not been used for months, he told his story. He was the last man of the Guam garrison and he had hidden on the island until the fleet came back again...
...Hills. Radioman George Ray Tweed, 42, was one of 400 sailors and 155 marines stationed on Guam when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Tweed had just taken an examination for a rating as a chief radioman and was still waiting to hear the results when the Japs came...
Hope Wanes. Occasionally he thumbed through his Bank of Guam checkbook, which showed he had a balance of $221.81, and idly figured up how much back pay he now had coming to him. He wondered how he had made out in his examination for chief. Frequently and anxiously he wondered too about his wife and two young sons, who must have given him up for dead. He wondered, too, about the where abouts of the U.S. Navy and had flags ready to signal although "after the first year I began to lose hope...
Sailor's Reward. On June 11, 1944, Tweed's hopes suddenly soared. He saw Navy planes in numbers flying over Guam. Bombs rained down. Tweed happily hugged the earth while bombs exploded. "They were a long time coming but they're here at last," he thought...