OCR Text |
Show Marianas Islands Have High Strategic Value The Marianas (Ladrones) Islands, which include Saipan where American Amer-ican troops have landed, were, before be-fore the war, richest and most populous popu-lous of the widespreading Tokyo-ruled Tokyo-ruled island empire of Micronesia, says the National Geographic society. so-ciety. The 14 Marianas also' occupy a key position for western Pacific air and naval strategy. Saipan, the capital cap-ital island, lies about 1,500 miles south of Tokyo and 3,300 miles west of Honolulu. Guam, largest and southernmost of the group, was a United States possession now occupied occu-pied by the Japanese. Since the Marianas were transferred trans-ferred from German ownership to Japanese mandate after the First World war, the steep and fertile land spots have been a principal goal of Japanese settlement. Sugar was the chief reason for the Japanese influx. Sugar cane thrives on Saipan, Ti-nian, Ti-nian, and Rota (10-18 miles long), the three most important islands of the archipelago. Kingpin of the coral and volcanic-built volcanic-built Marianas was Saipan. It was the administrative center and the site of a Japanese naval base. The Marianas stretch in a north-south north-south direction for almost 400 miles between 13 and 21 degrees north latitude, and therefore are fully within the tropics. Rainfall and humidity hu-midity are high; Saipan, strangely, enjoys a climate a little drier and a little cooler than its neighbors. Magellan discovered'the Marianas in March, 1521, when he sighted Rota and Guam and landed on Guam. When natives attacked his ship, he sailed away safely, but expressed ex-pressed his hard feelings at the reception re-ception accorded him by naming the islands Las Islas de Las Ladrones (Isles of Thieves). This name still is used, although unofficially. The natives, principaDy Chamor-ros, Chamor-ros, may have numbered almost 100,000 when white men first found the islands. Chamorro was the name given to the original Polynesian inhabitants. in-habitants. The modern Chamorro is a mixture of native and Spanish blood. In 1937 there were only 4,180, while the Japanese population numbered num-bered 42,688. Approximately 40 per cent of the total population of all the Japanese mandated island groups of Micronesia live in the Marianas. The area of the Marianas (not counting Guam) is only about 10 times that of the District of Columbia. Colum-bia. Most of the land is government-owned. |