Return to Guam
Encyclopedia
Return to Guam was a 1944 short propaganda film produced by the US Navy about the taking and recapture of the island of Guam.
The film starts with a ship convoy nearing the island sees strange lights flashing from the island in the Morse code "information". After cautiously investigating the signal, they find that it was made by a white man, George Tweed, the last survivor of the original garrison at Guam. Tweed relates his harrowing story of how he survived in the bush for 31 months with the help of the natives, Chamorros
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The narrator then tells the audience that the island of Guam means much to the people of America, none more so than the Chamorros sailors on the convoy. The film, through the voice of a chammoro, relates how good life was on the island, how the US had opened schools and clinics for the natives, as well as trained them for self government.
Then, on December 11, 1941, the island is assaulted by a huge force of Japanese planes and ships. The out numbered garrison of about 500 men defends the island, but to little avail, and contact is lost with the mainland within hours. The American people and Chamorro diaspora don't know what happened to the friends and relatives on the island.
So the long process of industrial rearmament and "island hopping" begins with each element being scorned by a "Japanese" man with a radio speaker in silhouette behind a curtain. And then the island is taken. Surprisingly little is actually shown of the battle, but Tweed is shown talking to some of his superiors about the experience of the Chamorros on the island, the brutality and torture that the Japanese inflicted on them, and several photographs of Chamorro severed heads are shown, with the narrator explaining why each was decapitated.
The film starts with a ship convoy nearing the island sees strange lights flashing from the island in the Morse code "information". After cautiously investigating the signal, they find that it was made by a white man, George Tweed, the last survivor of the original garrison at Guam. Tweed relates his harrowing story of how he survived in the bush for 31 months with the help of the natives, Chamorros
Chamorros
The Chamorro people, or Chamoru people, are the indigenous peoples of the Mariana Islands, which include the American territory of Guam and the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. Today, significant Chamoru populations also exist in several U.S. states...
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The narrator then tells the audience that the island of Guam means much to the people of America, none more so than the Chamorros sailors on the convoy. The film, through the voice of a chammoro, relates how good life was on the island, how the US had opened schools and clinics for the natives, as well as trained them for self government.
Then, on December 11, 1941, the island is assaulted by a huge force of Japanese planes and ships. The out numbered garrison of about 500 men defends the island, but to little avail, and contact is lost with the mainland within hours. The American people and Chamorro diaspora don't know what happened to the friends and relatives on the island.
So the long process of industrial rearmament and "island hopping" begins with each element being scorned by a "Japanese" man with a radio speaker in silhouette behind a curtain. And then the island is taken. Surprisingly little is actually shown of the battle, but Tweed is shown talking to some of his superiors about the experience of the Chamorros on the island, the brutality and torture that the Japanese inflicted on them, and several photographs of Chamorro severed heads are shown, with the narrator explaining why each was decapitated.