South Pacific Memorial Peace Park - Yigo Village, Guam
- Tony Boccia
- Feb 17
- 3 min read
The South Pacific Memorial Peace Park in Yigo, Guam was established in June 1970 on the site of the former Mataguac Hill Command Post by the South Pacific War Memorial Association. Here, the last Japanese organized resistance on Guam ended on August 10, 1944; at the site you can find a small remembrance chapel, a peace memorial, and several monuments and markers that commemorate both the people who took part in the battle of Guam, and those who came later to remember them. Every year, the site is cleaned by a team from Japan, and during the year it is impeccably maintained, by Japanese-Americans on Guam and volunteers from the community.
Inside the hall are shelves full of artifacts from the Japanese occupation and the military action that took place near here, in addition to notes and letters from various groups that have visited throughout the years. On the wall is a Japanese flag emblazoned with the Japanese characters for legacy and memorial, with the date of Showa 60; January 1985. Also hanging on the wall is a photo of Lt. General Obata Hideyoshi 小畑 英良, somberly overlooking the silence.
Outside, the memorial sits at the foot of Mataguac Hill, extending skyward like two hands; you can see similar structures on Saipan. The American, Japanese, and Guam flags flutter in the breeze. The elevation is pretty high in Yigo (compared to the rest of Guam) and Mataguac is about 620 feet above sea level, the 24th-highest point on the island. A line of smaller memorials stretches out to the side of the structure; notably the Imperial Japanese Army 18th Regiment and Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service 521st Corps are remembered here as well as the Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) who helped to realize this site. A small stone marker is dedicated to the Imperial Japanese Navy' 5th Naval Hospital Squadron. A complete list of Imperial Japanese Army and Navy units that served on Guam can be found here.
Moving away from the memorials, you can walk past a stone that was dedicated by former Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru 吉田 茂 to the foot of the hill and visit a series of caves that served as Obata’s last headquarters. Lt. General Takeshi Takashina 高品 彪, commander of Guam’s defenses, had been killed in the fighting near Asan Beach on the 28th of July, and it was up to Obata as overall commander in the Marianas to ensure the Japanese ended the battle on their own terms. A signpost marks the spot where he committed seppuku. The cave entrance was buried in rubble; American forces found it and recovered his body later.
The South Pacific Memorial Peace Park may not be the most flashy second world war site on Guam, but aside from the Chinkon Shrine in Hagatna there is no other purely Japanese place where you can quite feel the presence of the dead on the island. These two sites are similar to the war memorials on Saipan, and different from other sites on Guam such as Asan Beach or Piti Guns. Links to Pacific History Guide's Guam page located here.
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