A U.S. territory in Japan's South Sea Islands : the Japanese navy administration of Guam

Abstract

This thesis examines the Japanese Imperial Navy's administrative policy for Guam, implemented from December 1941 until July 1944, when U.S. forces retook the island. Guam was invaded by Japan simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbour. This southernmost island of the Mariana Islands chain in Micronesia had been under U.S. Naval administration since 1898, when it was taken from Spain at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. This thesis examines Guam under Japanese naval rule in relation to the navy's policies for Japan's South Sea Islands (Nan'yô Guntô). The South Sea Islands were the Micronesian islands occupied by Japan in 1914, and mandated-to Japan by the League of Nations in 1919. With its own notion of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere ideology, the Navy occupied Guam and other southern areas, and attempted to establish political and economic relationships with territories and peoples under its rule. On Guam, the navy's civil administration organization, the Minseibu, was responsible for this task. The navy's goal was "organic integration" between Japan and Guam. However, the navy did not explain the measures that would provide direction and substance to "organic," although it was the navy's favourite term. To understand the terminology and actual policies, this thesis examines two major issues: the navy's pre-war policies for the South Sea Islands and its governing plans for the South Seas; and the Guam Minseibu's policy for political, economic, and cultural affairs for ruling the Chamorro people. I argue that the navy's concept of "organic" was prepared as a guiding idea for peaceful economic expansion to the south. However, it evolved according to Japan's urgent need for natural resources and became a plan for the military defence of the Pacific. With Japan's move toward aggression and shortage of defence resources, the navy's ideal of "organic" was transformed. The "organic" policy that aimed at mutual cooperation was turned into ethnic rule. This was expressed in the Guam Minseibu's rule over the Chamorros. As a result, Guam and its people were thrown into a centripetal movement toward Japan's military, society, state, and Emperor system. The navy's unique ideal was finally exposed for what it was, concentric circles of the Japanese government's Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere ideology. This is the first study to reconstruct Japanese naval administration on Guam based on government and naval documents, private records, and oral testimony, while 'taking into consideration the relationship between two different colonial entities, Guam, a U.S. territory, and the South Sea Islands, Japan's strategic area. Show more