Seen from the smoke-filled deck of the USS New Mexico on July 14, 1944, the pre-invasion bombardment of Guam thundered across the horizon as American forces shelled their own territory, which had been brutally occupied by Japan since December 1941. Part of the massive amphibious strategy known as Operation Forager, this relentless shelling aimed to completely dismantle Japanese coastal fortifications ahead of the impending troop landings.
The agonizing, unmentioned human paradox of this pre-invasion bombardment was the horrific danger it posed to the native Chamorro population of Guam. While the massive American battleships roared to liberate the island, their devastating shells routinely struck inland areas where thousands of local civilians were being held in forced labor camps by the Japanese military. The local population had to endure weeks of terrifying “friendly fire” from their own nation’s navy, hiding in muddy trenches while American artillery leveled their ancestral homes.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
