[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 102 (Thursday, July 17, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5454-H5457]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE GUAM WAR RESTITUTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Guam [Mr. Underwood] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, this is the last opportunity that I will 
have to speak on the issue of Guam's liberation before its 53d 
celebration on Monday, July 21, 1997, which will be the 53d anniversary 
of the liberation of Guam from the hands of the Japanese occupiers when 
the marines landed on the beaches with the help of the 77th Army.
  What I would like to do is to tell a little bit about the story about 
Guam, and some legislation that I have introduced today to help rectify 
an egregious error, an egregious error that may be made about the 
experience of the people of Guam.
  The people of Guam experienced something that is very unique in the 
American framework. It was the only American territory with civilians 
who lived on it that has been occupied by a foreign power since the War 
of 1812. During World War II the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska 
were occupied by the Japanese, but prior to that the civilians on those 
islands were evacuated by the military.
  In the case of Guam, what we had was approximately 20,000 native 
Guamanians, better known as Chamorus, who were at that time considered 
U.S. nationals. They were not aliens. They were non-U.S. citizens, but 
they were considered U.S. nationals. Of course, Guam was an American 
territory. They endured some 32 months of Japanese occupation.
  The reason I tell this story is to celebrate not only the heroism of 
the American marines and soldiers and sailors who did so much to 
liberate the island from the hands of the Japanese, but also to draw 
attention to the experience of the people that I represent, the people 
of Guam, the experience of the elderly generation of Guam.
  I myself, I am the youngest in my family, and every one of my 
siblings was born either during the Japanese occupation or during the 
1930's. I think almost everybody from Guam, certainly of course who was 
born on Guam, has a very clear and direct connection and strong family 
history with respect to this dramatic experience of the Japanese 
occupation.
  My purpose here is not to reopen wounds, but rather to heal the 
wounds of the people. The people of Guam will have a compelling case to 
make before their Federal Government, and of a Federal Government that 
seems unwilling to hear this story and unwilling to correct the 
injustices committed against the people of Guam in World War II.
  I want to make it clear that from my chronicling of this, it is not 
meant to cast any doubts about the nature of the liberation, or to even 
cast aspersions about the nature of the Japanese people. We all know 
that World War II was a terrific world conflagration. But I do want to 
take the opportunity to explain the experience of this unique island 
and this unique group of people.
  The central point, as I have indicated, is that Guam, only Guam, was 
the only American territory occupied in World War II; not the 
Philippines, which although it was an American territory at the time, 
was promised its independence long before the outbreak of World War II, 
and in fact became independent in 1946; and not the Aleutian Islands, 
as I have indicated, which was also occupied by Japanese soldiers, but 
whose inhabitants were evacuated by the military prior to the onset of 
hostilities.
  From the invasion day of December 10, 1941, when the Japanese landed 
on Guam to what we celebrate on Guam as Liberation Day, July 21, 1944, 
Guam was the only American soil with American nationals occupied for 32 
months.
  It has now been 53 years since the liberation of Guam, and if 
anything, time has not meant that all is forgotten or forgiven, not 
until there is some measure of national recognition of what happened to 
our fellow Americans on Guam, and how the Federal Government failed to 
make them whole and right the wrongs of the occupation.
  The occupation of Guam was especially brutal, for two reasons. First 
of all, the Japanese were occupying American territory with American 
nationals whose loyalty to the United States would not bend; and 
second, the Chamorus, the indigenous people of Guam, dared to defy the 
occupiers by assisting American sailors who hid and who evaded initial 
capture by the enemy by providing food and shelter to the escapees.
  In the final months of the occupation, just before the marines landed 
in July 1944, the brutalities increased. Thousands of Chamorus were 
made to perform forced labor by building defenses and runways for the 
enemy. Others were put to labor in rice paddies. The war in the Pacific 
turned for the worse for the Japanese occupiers, and in the final weeks 
as the pre-invasion bombardment by American planes and ships signaled 
the beginning of the end for them, the atrocities likewise escalated.
  Forty-six Chamorus in the southern village of Malesso were herded 
into caves and were summarily executed by the enemy throwing hand 
grenades into the caves and spraying the caves with rifle fire and 
machine gunfire. Miraculously, some of them survived by pulling the 
bodies of their fallen fellow villagers over themselves to protect 
themselves against the rain of shrapnel and bullets, and also to hide 
the fact that they were still alive.
  Louisa Santos called on me in 1992. She was a survivor of this. She 
asked me never to let this country forget what happened on Guam, and to 
promise that I would do everything I could to tell her story, and to 
tell the story of the people of Guam. She survived the massacre in 
Malesso, bore the scars of that massacre and the shrapnel in her back 
and on her feet, and every time she walked, with every step, she was 
reminded of that nightmarish experience on Guam. I am sad to report 
that she died 3 years ago.
  In the capital city of Agana another group of Chamorus were rounded 
up and one by one executed by beheading and mutilation by swords. 
Miraculously the story of one very brave woman, Beatrice Flores Emsley, 
who was 13 years old at the time, stood to bear witness as she survived 
an attempted beheading.
  Mrs. Emsley, before she died 2 years ago, bore the long scar down the 
side of her neck where a sword struck her. She fainted after being 
struck and awoke 2 days later with maggots all over her neck, but 
thankful to be alive. Mrs. Emsley, of course, stood as the best 
spokesperson for the experience of the Chamoru people during World War 
II.
  Thousands of Chamorus, every single one of them, not hundreds but 
thousands, were forced to march from their villages in northern and 
central Guam to internment camps in southern Guam before the weeks 
before liberation. Everyone marched, old people, old men and women, 
newborn babies, children and the sick, they were marched to internment 
camps in Manengon, the largest one of all, where they awaited their 
fate for the next few weeks, and many did not live to see the 
liberation.
  Many did not live, but their brothers and sisters, and most 
importantly, their children and grandchildren, survived, and their 
fellow Chamorus survived, again to bear witness to these atrocities. In 
their final acts of retribution against the people of Guam the Japanese 
occupiers inflicted a violence against our people that cannot easily be 
forgotten.
  The Catholic high school for young men in Guam, Father Duenas 
Memorial School in Tai, bears witness to the courage of one young 
priest who in the

[[Page H5455]]

last days before liberation was also beheaded as revenge for the 
occupiers' frustration in not capturing the lone American sailor who 
had evaded their grasp with the aid of the Chamoru people.

                              {time}  1615

  The memory of this young noble priest lives on as the high school 
named in his honor stands witness to his courage. Against this backdrop 
of terror the liberation of Guam began on July 21, 1944.
  On that fateful day, if we can think back historically, two groups of 
people came together. One was in uniform and the other was in rags; one 
used weapons of war and the other used tools for survival. One came in 
from the sea and the other came down from the hills; and one left their 
families behind while the other tried to keep their families together. 
One liberated the island from without, while the other liberated the 
island from within.
  In their meeting the great historical drama that Guam alone could 
play in World War II came to pass, as American soil was liberated from 
enemy hands and as American marines and American soldiers were united 
with American civilians held captive in internment camps on American 
soil.
  The battle-hardened American servicemen, many of whom I have met over 
the years, came to Guam concerned about meeting a determined enemy; but 
these men soon came to understand the special nature of this battle 
amongst all those battles in the Pacific war, indeed amongst all the 
battles of World War II. This was a reoccupation. This was retaking 
what once was lost and what was once American.
  As the young marines and the soldiers saw our people coming down from 
the hills, they broke down and openly wept as they saw Guam's children 
emerge from the hills carrying handmade American flags, and as they saw 
Guam's old men and women emerge from the internment camps clutching 
rosaries and thanking young liberators for their deliverance from 
certain death.
  The story of these people cries out for attention and certainly 
understanding. The story has a dimension of unfinished business to it, 
of an injustice that must be corrected and of a legacy of loyalty that 
has been tarnished by the neglect of some Federal officials; in the 
aftermath of liberation, a grave injustice that to this day, 53 years 
later, has yet to be undone.
  The Treaty of Paris, the treaty of peace with Japan signed on 
September 8, 1951, by the United States and 47 Allied powers, 
effectively precluded the just settlement of war reparations for the 
people of Guam against their former occupiers, against the Japanese. In 
the treaty the United States waived all claims of reparations against 
Japan by United States citizens.
  Consider how ironic this situation is, in that the people of Guam 
became citizens just 1 year earlier, on August 1, 1950, by virtue of 
the Organic Act, a citizenship that was granted to the people of Guam 
largely because of their demonstrated loyalty to America during the 
occupation, was given in 1950. And the peace treaty in 1951 waived all 
their rights for filing war claims against the Japanese a year later 
for an experience that occurred in the previous decade.
  The historical events surrounding the signing of this treaty of peace 
creates a compelling argument that the Federal Government, including 
the U.S. naval government of Guam at the time and the U.S. Congress, 
failed to address the circumstances of the Americans on Guam and 
allowed a situation to develop over the years where justice was delayed 
and ultimately denied. The bitter irony is that the loyalty of the 
people of Guam to the United States has resulted in Guam being forsaken 
in the determination of war reparations.
  Did the Federal Government simply forget what happened on Guam? 
Unfortunately, the answer is not that Guam was forgotten at all, but 
that at critical moments when Congress dealt with the issue of war 
reparations for all Americans during World War II, like the case of 
civilian nurses who were captured in the Philippines or civilian 
Americans who were interned in Japan, those situations were attended 
to. Whenever Congress attended to those issues, Guam's unique situation 
escaped the attention of lawmakers in this body.
  In fact, the record does show a deliberate attempt by Congress and 
the Navy to address the reparations issue and to do right by the people 
of Guam for their wartime loyalty. That they fell short in their 
attempts is the cause for our efforts to seek redress 50 years later. 
This is not a case of a people belatedly asking for something that they 
are not entitled to by justice or design. It is a case of the law 
falling short in the goal of making Guam whole after the war, and of 
Congress neglecting to address the issues that were raised by its own 
War Claims Commission.
  What Congress did was, they recognized right after the war, 1945, 
they recognized the devastation and the dramatic and urgent need for 
rehabilitation. And on November 15, 1941, Congress passed Public Law 
79-224, which is known as the Guam Meritorious Claims Act. This was 
supposed to grant immediate relief to the residents of Guam by the 
prompt settlement of meritorious claims. The following year, 1946, 
Congress also passed the Guam Land Transfer Act, Public Law 79-225, and 
the Guam Rehab Act, 79-583.
  While the Guam Meritorious Claims Act became the primary means of 
settling war claims for the people of Guam, the Guam Land Transfer Act 
provided a means for exchanging land for resettlement purposes. 
Unfortunately, conditions on Guam in 1945, which was thoroughly 
devastated, in 1946 did not lend themselves to the best of 
congressional intentions. During the battle to liberate Guam, over 80 
percent of the buildings were destroyed. The city of Agana and the 
second largest city, Sumay, were completely annihilated.
  Once the island was secured, Guam became the forward operating base 
for the subsequent invasions of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. 
Over 45 percent of the land mass was acquired for this wartime effort, 
and over 200,000 military personnel came to Guam to prosecute the war 
against Japan. The Chamorus, numbering only about 20,000, were 
temporarily housed in refugee camps. To their credit, the Chamoru 
people did not complain. In fact, they helped the military in every way 
they could to help defeat their former oppressors.
  In the report of the War Claims Commission with respect to the war 
claims arising out of World War II, it stated that no organized program 
for reconstruction of damaged or destroyed civilian facilities had been 
undertaken.
  In asking Congress to revisit this issue at this particular time, I 
want to point out a couple of items. When Congress passed the Guam 
Meritorious Claims Act in 1945, it established a mechanism where if you 
made a claim for more than $5,000, you had to go to Washington to 
personally adjudicate the claim. You had 1 year in which to file and 
complete a claim. When and if you had a claim for personal injury or 
death, and I just mention that many people were killed and/or beheaded, 
you could not adjudicate that as other than a property claim.
  Despite those three defects, the people of Guam were allowed only 1 
year's opportunity to address these claims.
  When that was completed in 1948, the Congress passed a broader war 
claims act which included all Americans and American nationals who were 
interned by the Japanese and other enemies during the war. In 1962, due 
to defects in that law, this law was again changed. Neither the 1948 
law nor the 1962 law included the people of Guam.

  Here is the anomaly. My grandfather, James Holland Underwood, who was 
originally from North Carolina, was taken and was interned as an 
American civilian in Japan. As a result of the 1948 War Claims Act, he 
received a war claim for his internment by the enemy. His wife, my 
grandmother, and all their children who were also interned by the 
Japanese could not receive any claim under the 1948 or the 1962 law.
  So you have the anomaly here where you have one group of Americans 
who were attended to by two separate actions of Congress, while you had 
one war restitution law that was dealt with by the people of Guam in 
the Guam Meritorious Claims Act for 1 year.
  It has been a great tragedy, and in the course of dealing with that 
the Department of the Interior created what was known as the Hopkins 
Commission in 1947; came out, studied the situation, made a series of 
recommendations and clearly indicated that in the

[[Page H5456]]

case of Guam, the Guam Meritorious Claims Act was clearly inadequate.
  So here we are, some 53 years later, addressing the same issue. This 
issue could have been resolved had Guam been included in the 1948 law 
or had Guam been included in the 1962 revision of that law. But in both 
instances, Guam was not included. Guam had no representative in this 
body until 1972, so there was not adequate opportunity for any elected 
representative of the island to present their case in front of this 
body when the issue came to surface during 1948 and 1962.
  All of this is not meant to cast any doubt or to lessen the intensity 
of the feelings of the people of Guam on Liberation Day. Liberation Day 
on Guam is still by far the largest single holiday, widely celebrated. 
Schools are out. The government is closed. Businesses are closed. The 
greatest parade of the year occurs on that day. And when the Marines go 
marching by, you will hear the greatest cheer for the Marines that you 
will ever hear in any community throughout the world.
  So there is a great deal of affinity and a great deal of love and 
recognition for the military and their efforts during World War II. And 
the people of Guam in their experience and in their devotion to the 
flag that stands behind me are, I think, unmatched in the experience 
certainly during World War II as the only community that was held and 
occupied by a foreign enemy.
  But we still have this issue. And so today I have dropped in the 
bill, the Guam War Restitution Act, and I am happy to report that I 
have several, very many cosponsors on this. Basically, what it does is 
it allows for the payment of war claims of $20,000 for a death, $7,000 
for an injury, and $5,000 for forced march or forced labor or 
internment.
  Most of the people who were injured or experienced forced labor, 
forced march, or internment have regrettably already passed on, so they 
will not get any awards. And their descendants will not get any awards, 
either, because in the context of providing legislation like this, the 
only money that could actually ever go to an heir of someone who 
experienced this was in the case of a death.
  So in the case of Guam, these issues still remain unresolved, and 
they still tug at the heart strings of those of us who have heard all 
of the stories and for many of the people of Guam who personally 
experienced the hardships. It is really important to understand the 
context in which the people of Guam feel this. Every family has a 
relationship to the war experience which is at once powerful and 
inspiring at the same time that it is disheartening and sometimes a 
little debilitating.
  But, nevertheless, the war experience stands as powerful testimony to 
the capacity of the Chamoru people to survive and their ability to 
survive under some very difficult circumstances, as well as powerful 
testimony to the liberators who came. And the liberators who came 
numbered many who have served in this body and in the other body, most 
notably Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, who was wounded on Guam, and 
Gen. Louis Wilson, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor and 
who later on became Commandant of the Marine Corps.

                              {time}  1630

  In fact, last week I laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 
with the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Krulak, in 
recognition of the work and the relationship that I think the people of 
Guam have with the United States Marine Corps as a result of this war 
experience.
  But the war experience is still unresolved, and so I call upon 
Members of this body to cosponsor the legislation. Let us do something 
that should have been done before.
  We have an enormously ironic situation, where we have a people who 
could have submitted claims against the Japanese Government but they 
were declared citizens 1 year before the peace treaty between Japan and 
the United States, although that peace treaty occurred 6 years after 
the war.
  So we have in the instance, for example the Philippines, which was 
American territory, we had the Congress giving the Philippines $390 
million for the war experience, and then the Philippines, as an 
independent country, also claiming war restitution from Japan and 
receiving it. And in both instances the Philippines deserved it.
  But in the case of Guam, we have the instance where they are denied 
the opportunity to make claims against Japan and, by any Federal 
official who has studied the situation, clearly inadequate opportunity 
to make claims against the U.S. Government.
  I want to point out that in the negotiation of the Japan-U.S. peace 
treaty and in the reporting of this peace treaty to the Senate, 
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles clearly indicated, in response to 
a question, that if any American citizen has a legitimate war 
reparations claim that, as a result of this treaty, that war 
reparations claim should not be directed to the Japanese Government, it 
should be directed to the U.S. Government.
  So in light of all of that history, I call upon the people of this 
House to cosponsor this important legislation and to honor this very 
unique and powerful story about how a small group of people endured 
much in the name of the flag that stands behind me, and whose faith 
that America would return never wavered and who indeed suffered much.
  Now, I want to bring this story up to the present day, and I want to 
bring it up to the present day because it is bothersome. Guam, today, 
is a vital part of the projection of American power in the Asia and 
Pacific part of the world. As the dynamics of the world has shifted, 
Guam remains the only U.S. territory that is on the other side of the 
international dateline in which military facilities exist.
  As the dynamics of power has shifted in Asia, the United States no 
longer has military facilities in the Philippines and, increasingly, 
the U.S. forces in Japan, particularly in Okinawa, are always under a 
great deal of criticism by some of the local people and even in Korea.
  So we have a situation where the United States military and the 
United States' interests, which are projected into the Asia-Pacific 
theater, Guam's role in that is enhanced by the whole changing dynamics 
of the area, yet the Department of Defense has taken a couple of steps 
which really the people of Guam have interpreted as hostile steps.
  To discuss one, just to briefly touch on it, last week, July 10, the 
Department of Defense announced that they were pulling out of the Guam 
school system and establishing their own Department of Defense school. 
They are in the process of establishing this school system, which is 
destined for opening in October of this year, despite the fact that I 
and other Guam officials had been reassured that if they took this 
step, it would not happen until 1998 so that we could, hopefully, work 
out some problems and disagreements. But here the Department of Defense 
has decided to unilaterally pull out their students from the Government 
of Guam schools.
  This is really the first time in my experience, and we have discussed 
this with a number of people, where a Department of Defense school has 
been established in opposition to the wishes of the local community. It 
may surprise some people to know that there are Department of Defense 
schools in the 50 States, but usually it is done within the context of 
collaboration and cooperation with the local community.
  Now, the net effect of pulling these military dependents out of the 
Guam schools is to change the racial composition. It will have an 
effect on the ethnic composition of the kids who attend schools on 
Guam.
  This action was taken at the same time or nearly the same time, 4 
days ahead, of the first meeting of the President's One America 
Commission; to have one America. The President has created a commission 
to improve the racial climate of the United States and to bring the 
people of the United States together and to make sure that we openly 
acknowledge our racial and ethnic differences and that we can do so in 
a climate of trust and mutual support.
  At the same time that the President announces this initiative and the 
first meeting of this commission is held here in Washington, D.C. on 
July 14, just a week earlier the Department of Defense is creating a 
separate school system on Guam.
  This always begs the question whether people in the Department of 
Defense

[[Page H5457]]

see Guam as part of America rather than as ``us and them'' or as some, 
perhaps, overseas foreign area. Of course, it is not, but if they 
continue to behave this way, they are really threatening civilian-
military relationships on the island.
  To add insult to injury on this, the Department of Defense has 
announced that no local teachers can be hired for their DOD schools, 
but they would be happy to hire local custodians or other people to 
work in the schools in a less than professional capacity; and that 
while no locally hired civil service employees can attend these DOD 
schools, State-side hires, State-side hired civil service employees 
will be able to attend these DOD schools.
  So the bottom line on these actions is not to build connections and 
bridges between communities, but certainly has the net effect of not 
only building more gaps between the communities but certainly is not 
keeping faith with the experience that I described on July 21, 1944.
  In addition to this, BRAC, in 1995, decided to close down some 
facilities on Guam, and many military planners have now acknowledged 
that that was probably not a very wise decision, but, inevitably, in 
any event, it has occurred and the people of Guam are trying to recover 
from this.
  In addition to this, the Navy announced earlier this year that they 
are conducting two A-76 studies on their military facilities to 
determine which civilian jobs can be privatized or let out on a 
contractual basis. And the two bases that they picked were in Pensacola 
and on Guam.
  It is hard for me to understand why they would identify, in addition 
to the BRAC decision, in addition to all that has gone on, they 
identified in January of this year some 1,100 jobs as being analyzed 
for privatization. They said they did this after exhaustive study and 
careful analysis and understanding that this would not affect the 
readiness, but, of course, not considering how it would affect those 
1,100 loyal civil service workers.

  Just yesterday they wrote a letter, as required by law, to officials 
of this body and to officials of the administration announcing that 
they are adding another 534 jobs for this careful analysis, which leads 
me to believe that the first analysis was probably not all that 
careful.
  But here is the kicker. The kicker is that this is only applied to 
Guam. It is not being applied to other locations. And when the people 
from Guam are only represented in this fine institution by a nonvoting 
delegate, and they have no representatives in the other body, and they 
represent a fairly small population, they always ask themselves the 
question: Would the Navy do this in Virginia? Would the Navy do this in 
Florida? Would the Navy do this in California? And, most importantly, 
would they do it in this way?
  I think, clearly, the answer is, probably not. They probably would 
not do it, and for sure they would not do it in this way.
  This is not the way to treat a community that has been tested by war, 
that has not only evidenced its loyalty in the context of World War II, 
but most people who have a great deal to do with the military know the 
fine record of many young people from Guam in the military. Guam had 
the highest per capita casualty rate of any jurisdiction during the 
Vietnam conflict. So everybody knows the record of the people of Guam 
in the context of service to this country and in the context of the 
hardships that sometimes war imposes on people. And the people of Guam 
have responded well.
  But now, when there are times of peace and there are times of 
contentment, their peaceful existence is again disturbed not by foreign 
enemies but by a series of misguided planners in the Department of 
Defense.
  I ask officials at the Department of Defense, and I call upon them, 
especially those who are responsible for projecting American power in 
Asia and the Pacific, to seriously consider the ramifications of their 
actions on what was formerly a very good and solid relationship between 
the civilian and military communities on Guam.
  On Guam this relationship is a three-legged stool. This relationship 
is founded upon the economic value of the military presence to Guam, on 
the fact that our kids go to the same schools, and the fact that we 
have a peaceful land resolution process. The one on land is a little 
wobbly, the one on schools has been fractured, and now DOD is carefully 
sawing off that other one as we speak. I ask them to take these words 
very seriously.
  And I call upon the Members of this institution to take a serious 
look at the people of Guam's experience during World War II. I know 
there are many people who are watching, particularly those who were 
veterans of the conflict, of any conflict in the Pacific during World 
War II, who know about the viciousness and the brutality of war, and 
who know about the viciousness and the brutality of the battle on Guam 
and who remember those events fondly.
  I think the people of Guam deserve the recognition on July 21 and 
that, indeed, all of the liberators, all of the men who participated in 
the liberation of what once was an American territory prior to the 
invasion of the Japanese deserve all of our honor and our attention and 
we should make good on that experience.

                          ____________________