The top-secret flights that ended the war - The Japan Times
Naturally you’re moved to wonder how it appeared when alive, how it moved about and what it ate. On the plane’s approach to neighboring Saipan, you’ll get a fantastic bird’s-eye view of the “ribs” of that prehistoric creature — the four runways of North Field — which in the waning months of World War II was the largest operational U. S. air... Home to barely 3,000 people, the 101-sq. -km island of Tinian is one of three inhabited islands of 14 that make up the U. S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. Over a period of half a century — between 1899 and 1944 — Tinian went from being controlled by Spain to Germany, Japan and finally the U. S. , which in July 1944 captured the island in an eight-day campaign that was largely overshadowed by the... From the late 1930s, Japan had begun to augment its military presence in the Nampo Shoto (groups of islands south of the main archipelago), sending 1,280 convicts from Yokohama Prison to Tinian to expand Hagoi Field, located at the north end of... Once in American hands, teams of U. S. Navy construction battalions (known as “CBs” or “Seabees”) swarmed over the island, eventually moving an estimated 11 million tons of coral to build runways, taxiways,. Source: www.japantimes.co.jp
