Guam is by far the largest island in the Marianas group with an area of 225 sq miles (540 km²): the total land area of the group’s other 14 islands is 177 sq miles (458.5 km²). Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall islands group lies 1,000 miles (1610 km) to the east and Ulithi atoll in the Caroline islands group is 400 miles (645 km) to the south-west. Guam is located at the southern end of the Mariana islands group, with Saipan 100 miles (160 km) to the north-east and Rota island 47 miles (76 km) in the same basic direction. After its capture by the Japanese, Guam was renamed Omiya Jima (Great Shrine Island) and was codenamed 'Stevedore' in US planning. The recapture of Guam, together with the 'Forager' seizure of the other islands of the Marianas group and the 'Stalemate II' capture of Peleliu in the Palau islands group resulted in the destruction of much Japan’s naval air power at the 'Battle of the Philippine Sea' on 19/20 June 1944, and allowed the USA to establish major air bases from which it could bomb the Japanese home islands with its new strategic weapon, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress four-engined heavy bomber.īefore World War II, the government of the USA, which had gained control of Guam in the Spanish-American War of 1898, officially designated the island simply as Guam, deleting the appendages 'Island' and 'Mariana Islands', the latter to sever any identity with the Japanese-controlled islands of the South Seas Mandate given Japan after the defeat of Germany in World War I. The island of Guam was a US territory which had been captured by the Japanese in December 1941 as part of the first flush of the Japanese imperialist expansion after triggering the Pacific War by the 'Ai' carrierborne air attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian islands group. The '2 nd Battle of Guam' was fought between US and Japanese forces for Guam, the largest of the land masses in the Mariana islands group, as part of the 'Forager' strategic undertaking (21 July/10 August 1944).
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