Saipan: Where Nature Heals and History Refuses To

Banzai Cliff in the Marpi area at the northern tip of Saipan [Kim Myung-sang]

Stripped of their fruit and left skeletal, the island's palm trees stand alongside the crumbling concrete of a Japanese military bunker. One is a wound left by super typhoon Sinlaku, which tore through Saipan in April. The other is a relic of the Pacific War, now 82 years past.

Separated by decades, the two disasters coexist on this island. The difference between them is stark. The nature battered by the storm has already begun pushing out new shoots, quietly reclaiming itself. But the sites where Japan's imperial ambitions were shattered remain frozen at that moment 82 years ago, as if time itself refused to move on. A four-and-a-half-hour flight and just one hour's time difference away — "the closest piece of America" — Saipan awaits visitors carrying two distinct qualities: nature in recovery, and history denied the same.

Nature, battered by the typhoon, heals itself

Damage left by super typhoon Sinlaku, which struck Saipan in April [Provided by the Office of the Mayor of Saipan]

Super typhoon Sinlaku cut directly across Saipan in April, with peak winds reaching 210 kilometers per hour. It snapped more than 660 utility poles and left roughly 15,600 households without power. Two months later, in July, super typhoon Bavi made landfall on Rota Island and drove gusts exceeding 161 kilometers per hour across Saipan as well — arriving before Sinlaku's wounds had even begun to close.

Tourism has partially resumed. PIC Saipan and other well-known resorts are operating again, and while Managaha Island — popular for water activities — remains closed, jungle tours and northern island tours continue to run.

A Korean-American guide who showed visitors around the island shuddered recalling the storms. "The wind was so strong that containers and cars were rolling down the street," he said. "Our store in town didn't get electricity back for 45 days." He laughed, adding: "I've been through typhoons in Korea, but compared to this, those were nothing."

Yet the guide said the disasters also gave him a firsthand sense of American power. US military personnel were the first to arrive after the typhoons, distributing combat rations and water and setting up military tents for those whose homes had collapsed. Where utility poles had fallen, concrete replacements were urgently airlifted from nearby Guam, re-erected and wired up to restore power.

Workers clearing and restoring the Bird Island Trail [Provided by the Marianas Visitors Authority]

The typhoons were a nightmare, yet they produced an ironic economic windfall for the island. According to local media, US federal disaster relief disbursed to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands through this month — covering both individual assistance payments and food support — has totaled $64.7 million.

"Because a state of emergency was declared, the relief payments and food assistance went not just to citizens but to visa holders too," the guide explained. "More than 90 billion won was pumped into this tiny island. Everyone has money to spare right now. You can't even find a parking spot at restaurants or supermarkets."

Those who weathered the storms received substantial compensation. Some locals have even used the word "lottery" to describe it. "The US government paid out a lot to people whose homes or cars were destroyed," the guide said. "Some people whose old houses collapsed used the compensation to build new ones. There's a joke going around among locals that you actually lost out if your house didn't get damaged."

Workers removing fallen trees that had blocked roads after super typhoon Sinlaku struck [Provided by the Marianas Visitors Authority]

The typhoons inflicted serious damage on the natural landscape. Along roadsides, trees stripped entirely of their branches and leaves stand as bare trunks — a common sight across the island. The lush palm trees visitors typically picture at a tropical resort have largely vanished. The guide gestured at the trees nearby. "Normally a single tree would have dozens of coconuts or mangoes hanging from it," he said. "There isn't a single one. The typhoon knocked them all off."

Yet nature's resilience has been remarkable. In mid-August, new shoots are visible on trees across the island. The scars left by the storms remain, but patches of green have returned. "Right after the typhoon in April, you couldn't see a single spot of green anywhere," the guide said. "But it's already turning lush again — the wounds are healing. Recovery has been faster than expected, which gives me hope."

Hotels, resorts and golf courses that suspended operations for repairs are also preparing to reopen. Once major facilities return to normal, the island's tourism industry is expected to recover fully.

Japan's defeat, preserved in the island

The landscape around Banzai Cliff in northern Saipan [Kim Myung-sang]

The "American power" the guide described also delivered a decisive blow to Japan 82 years ago. Militarist Japan, which had squared off against the United States for control of the Pacific, felt that force most acutely on Saipan.

Because Saipan was a strategic position from which B-29 bombers could strike the Japanese mainland directly, Japanese resistance was ferocious. In the Battle of Saipan, more than 20 percent of the roughly 71,000 US troops deployed became casualties. Over 30,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, and fewer than 1,000 were taken prisoner — a testament to the battle's brutality.

The road leading to Banzai Cliff — the centerpiece of the northern island tour — was lined with flame trees, one of the island's signature sights, known for their brilliant red blossoms that look like bursting flames. The typhoon had snapped a great many of them. The guide looked at the broken trees and sighed. "It's a shame — this road used to turn a deep red in May and June, and now it's been damaged like this."

Banzai Cliff itself commands a stunning view, but it is a place steeped in the tragedy of the final days of the Battle of Saipan. Lt. Gen. Yoshitsugu Saito, commander of the Imperial Japanese Army's 43rd Division and the officer directing Saipan's last stand, issued a final order in the early hours of July 7, 1944, as defeat became inevitable: "Do not be taken prisoner — kill at least one more American before you die."

The following day, thousands of defeated Japanese soldiers and civilians chose death over surrender, shouting "Long live the Emperor" as they leaped from the 80-meter cliff. That is how the site came to be known as Banzai Cliff. Japanese authorities had spread rumors that capture by American forces meant torture and execution, and the militarist ideology drilled into soldiers and civilians alike held that death was more honorable than surrender.

Erased memory, forgotten mourning

A war dead memorial tower erected by Japan near Banzai Cliff [Kim Myung-sang]

Not everyone accepted the Japanese government-ordered mass death. Among those who refused were Koreans brought to the island through forced conscription. They were shot by Japanese soldiers or pushed off the cliff to their deaths.

Japan has offered no historical reckoning at the site. Around Banzai Cliff, a number of memorials have been erected, including a stone inscribed with a poem left by former Emperor Akihito during his 2005 visit, as well as a tower dedicated to the war dead and those who died in the fighting.

Memorial towers and monuments near Banzai Cliff honoring Japanese victims [Kim Myung-sang]

The inscriptions refer to "the war dead and those who perished," but in effect the memorials are limited to mourning Japan's own. There is no reflection on or apology for the war of aggression, no accounting for responsibility — only language dressed up as "consoling noble souls." The result conceals the responsibility of Japanese militarism for launching a war of conquest and driving countless people — its own and others — to their deaths, while casting Japan as a pitiable victim of the war.

The Pacific War Korean Victims Peace Memorial Tower [Kim Myung-sang]

While Japan's losses are emphasized, the Koreans who were worked as forced laborers and sacrificed as a human shield have been pushed to the margins of memory. Estimates put the number of Koreans who died around the time of the Battle of Saipan — from American bombardment, forced suicide and execution by Japanese soldiers, starvation and disease — at between 2,000 and 3,000 or more.

In response, the Korea Overseas Martyrs Memorial Association and the local Korean community in Saipan joined together to erect the Pacific War Korean Victims Peace Memorial Tower not far from Banzai Cliff in 1981, to honor the souls of the Korean dead. Built through private initiative, it is modest in scale, but it stands as an important witness to history and has become a must-visit stop for Korean travelers to Saipan.

One visitor, gazing at the vivid taeguk pattern on the memorial, could not contain his anger. "It's a tragedy, and it breaks my heart — but from our perspective, isn't it just unbearably unjust?" he said. "The perpetrators who started the war and forced our people into labor discriminated even in mourning, leaving us to build a separate memorial. That makes me furious."

A wound that will not close, carrying history forward

The Last Japanese Command Post [Kim Myung-sang]

Not far from Banzai Cliff stands the Last Japanese Command Post. Carved into a natural rock cave at the foot of a hill, it was the final position established by the Japanese military command after a series of retreats before advancing American forces. From the outside, it is so well camouflaged that it is easy to miss. On the concrete walls, impact craters more than two meters across — blasted open by US naval gunfire and armored vehicle cannons — and countless bullet holes remain exactly as they were left.

The end of the command was inglorious. On July 7, 1944, after issuing the order for a final charge, the commanding officers took their own lives inside the cave rather than be captured. Lt. Gen. Saito committed ritual suicide by disembowelment; a staff officer beside him then fired a pistol to confirm his death. Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, also died in the same cave by his own pistol. The commanders had ordered their subordinates and civilians to fight to the death, yet died first, hidden inside a cave — a moment that lays bare the cowardice and irresponsibility at the heart of Japanese militarism.

The wreckage of a tank used by Japanese forces [Kim Myung-sang]

Immediately after the commanders' deaths, roughly 4,000 remaining Japanese troops — soldiers, patients and even civilians armed with bamboo spears — obeyed the order and launched a final banzai charge against American forces. Out of ammunition, they rushed forward shouting "Long live the Emperor" in a suicidal assault that was annihilated by overwhelming American firepower. With the battle already lost beyond any recovery, it was a charge that could not have changed the outcome by even 1 percent — closer to mass suicide than a military operation. Outside the command post, the wreckage of artillery pieces and light tanks used by Japanese forces remains as silent testimony to Japan's devastating defeat.

The atomic bomb loading pit on the northern end of Tinian Island [Kim Myung-sang]

With Saipan lost, Japan's defeat accelerated rapidly. American forces converted the adjacent island of Tinian into a base for B-29 strategic bombers. It was from Tinian that the B-29s carrying the atomic bombs "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" took off to strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. By seizing Saipan, the United States had secured a critical forward base from which to strike the Japanese mainland directly — a development that proved decisive in bringing about Japan's defeat and Korea's Liberation.

On the way back, the bare palm trees came into view again. Between the skeletal trunks, fresh green leaves were growing. The contrast with the walls of the Japanese command post — still bearing the shell craters of 82 years ago, unchanged — could not have been sharper. Behind nature's resilience in pushing new life through catastrophe, the historical wounds left by reckless imperial ambition remain unstitched, bearing witness to much that the world has yet to fully reckon with.

For Korean travelers, Saipan is no mere resort destination. It carries the sorrowful history of forced mobilization, yet it is also the place where the decisive turning point came — the springboard from which Japan's defeat and Korea's Liberation were launched. On the eve of Liberation Day, the blue waters of Saipan ripple quietly on, holding all at once the pain of war, the hope of renewal and the warning of history.

terry@heraldcorp.com