Guam Our Forsaken Stepchild

The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. The mounting fury of world conflict, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around us greater see.

The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific War. Here as another public service is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come.

Guam are forsaken, step child. The lot is in the capture of the island. The Japanese today have converted the marine athletic field into a landing field.

They have fortified the island. And just two and a half years before they took it, men in the American Congress were saying, if we fortify Guam, we'll offend Japan! We'll offend Japan! The cost would be prohibitive. It would cost a hundred million dollars $100 million to make Guam an effective base.

Guam's position is so isolated and exposed that it cannot be defended. It will offend Japan! Offend Japan! Offend Japan! Early in 1939, Rear Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn and the naval board had looked into the proposal to fortify Guam along with many other places.

And they recommended that Guam is well adapted for the maintenance of an air force equal or superior to any force that could be assembled within a 1,200 mile radius. The facilities in Guam for a submarine base are excellent.

So long as Guam exists as a strong air and submarine base, hostile operations against the Philippines would be a precarious undertaking. To an even greater extent, Guam would greatly impede if not actually deny extensive hostile naval operations to the South.