Mute testimony to history

The need for American defence bases in the area is one reason why the United States and the Micronesian Congress don’t see eye to-eye on Micronesia’s political future. America would like some guarantees in the area. Micronesians in many districts see evidence all round them of the time when America really needed the Micro nesian islands. Micronesian Congressmen, for instance, who fly into Saipan to attend Congress meetings, pass over the small islands of Tinian as their aircraft descends for the landing at Saipan airport— and this is the view they get of Tinian’s giant wartime North Field air base, now defunct—but not forgotten. The V-shaped apron in the foreground is part of history. The black spots, now earth filled and each growing a palm, mark the site of the pits from which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs were loaded, amid great secrecy, into American B-29’s parked over them on August 6 and 9, 1945. The aircraft took off for their final flights from one of the runways in the background, and a few hours later dropped the first A-bombs to be used in warfare. Two memorial columns, with brass plaques, have been erected on the apron. The destruction caused by the two bombs gave the Japanese a face-saving opportunity to surrender a week later .