To my previous tour clients: Here are some follow-up answers to tour questions, as promised! (Did you actually believe your Saipan/Tinian/Rota educational tour experience was over once you left the island!????)
Also, see the Youtube link in the postscript for a Garment Factory Era remembrance (the last factory closed 10 years ago; Jan 15, 2009)
Back in April, 2018, a previous tour client, Bill P., whose father was in the 6th Bombardment Group that flew out of Tinian, went with me to connect with the island. He shared a unique keepsake belonging to his father, the “Pirate’s Log: A Historical Record of the Sixth Bombardment Group.” So, I went back into my files to find some photos to help answer some recent questions:
1. Here is a photo of the American Memorial on Tinian NOW, next to a photo
of what it looked liked THEN (I’m standing at the northeast corner of the structure facing south). You’ll notice that there was actually a torii on the site that is now gone. (I believe I promised this to John and Michelle.)
2. Recently, there was a question during a tour as to whether the Air Operations building on Tinian was, in fact, used as the control tower for the runway operations. Previous guest and former Air Traffic Controller, Franklin E., speculated that if that had been the case, there would have been another structure atop the operations building. Sure enough, this “then and now” photo using Bill P.’s Pirate’s Log shows that there was, indeed, what appears to be
such a control tower. I’m standing behind the building, looking towards the apron that has the bomb group memorials.
Hope that answers and/or elicits some lingering questions from your tour!
Thanks to everyone who asks these questions that I love to answer, and thanks, this time, to Bill P., and Frank E., for helping me answer them!
As always, I’ll update you every now and then when interesting tidbits arise.
W
p.s. For those interested in the garment factory era on Saipan, you’ll be interested to know that the last garment factory on Saipan closed ten years ago on January 15, 2009. I’m about to upload a series of Youtube videos with some of my personal pics and videos of remembrances of what life was like on the island at that time–including times spent hanging out with the factory girls (and guys)! (And if you weren’t aware, I wrote a book about that era (Chicken Feathers & Garlic Skin: Diary of a Chinese Garment Factory Girl on Saipan with Chun Yu Wang) that has been used in three universities stateside in either “Textiles” or “Women’s Studies” courses, and has been excerpted in a French schoolbook on “The American Dream” and has over 160 reviews on Amazon!)
Here’s Episode 1 of “Remembering the Garment Factory Era” series: https://youtu.be/_PN-dZvXhH0
p.p.s. If YOU never wrote a review of your DiscoverSaipan tour experience here on Saipan or Tinian, it’s never too late to do so! Here are the TripAdvisor and Google links:
(a) Link for Tripadvisor review:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60716-d8818668-Reviews-Discover_Saipan-Saipan_Northern_Mariana_Islands.html
(b) Link for Google search review:
https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=off&q=saipan+discoversaipan&lrd=0x66d8b1366741c89b:0x6068a5b6502be2c,1,&cad=h
You may also return to your ToursbyLocals or Viator account to do the same!