There are so many Japanese WWII buildings, artifacts, and debris that I had to break it up into two long blog posts. Wow, this is so very interesting, educational, and heart wrenching all at the same time. Walking around the main island is like walking through a history book, with shells scattered on the ground and strafing on the cement walls of bunkers and generator buildings. Large guns are scattered around the perimeter on the beach and the reef.
The Japanese started construction of the Taroa massive airbase (the main island on Maloelap) in 1935, in secret. This was in anticipation of the war and completely against The League of Nations (which they subsequently withdrew from). America did not know the base existed until 1942! There are over 350 buildings, wrecks, and sites on Taroa Island.
The U.S. decided that Taroa would not be invaded but would be neutralized by air and naval bombardment. Over 4300 tons of explosives were dropped on this little island lined with white beaches and towering palm trees. The Japanese fought heroically to keep their airfield operational but it was too much and they were cut off from all of their supply ships. The plan was to slowly starve any resistance to a standstill and that is exactly what the U.S. did.
The Remains of the Destruction
We are anchored in an ideal spot behind a lovely reef with cool breezes. We look over to the island of Taroa which looks like any typical island paradise but it is steeped in WWII history. It is here on this tropical coral island, covered in palm trees, and surrounded by white sandy beaches where thousands of soldiers and locals died. The ruins of this WWII legacy can still be explored today.
The 150+ locals living on the island have learned to live with the rotting buildings, planes, bunkers, ships, and weapons. Whatever could be reused is adopted for a more peaceful purpose while the rest fades slowly away into the jungle overgrowth.
“L” Shaped Pier
The reversed “L” shaped pier built by the Japanese in the late 1930’s is still in use today despite it being decayed and decrepit. The pier was made of concrete reinforced with iron in the shape of a backwards “L”. It was filled with sand and coral rubble to increase its operational use and extends 70 meters (230′) from the shore.
The locals use it for a small boat landing and fishing in spite of it being shattered by extensive bombing.
Communications Center
The Command and Radio C (also called Communication Center) is located just outside the main village. It is really eerie as it’s two story building stands strong and proud having endured rounds and rounds of bombs. The kids showing us around gleefully run inside to play. As I follow behind them it is hard not to feel the shadows of the soldiers who walked the halls over 80 years ago.
I enter with trepidations, but soon get swept up in the impressive build of the building. The doors have got to be 6-8″ of solid steel and the windows are at least .5 meters thick. However, you can still see evidence of the severe damage by the explosives despite the extraordinary build,
Not sure it is safe to walk around here let alone have children playing here, but they do.
Coastal Defense Gun
Imagine driving your dinghy up to shore to greet the Mayor and the first thing you see is a massive sunken ship and a enormous coastal defense gun. It is a little more than disturbing. The long barrel of the coastal defense gun is still pointing across the empty horizon looking for its target.
This steel coastal gun is a Type 45 mounted on a gun base and facing north. It has an elevation of +43° and has an indirect fire capability. This gun originally sat on “shore” where they dug a pit, laid concrete as the base, then secured the gun. As you can see, the shore has eroded and most of the base is submerged now. The shore used to extend all the way out, past the gun to the other submerged iron mess that we could not identify (lower photo).
Anti-Aircraft Defense Gun
We find an intact Japanese Type 88 (1928) 75 mm anti aircraft gun was mounted on a cement base and pointing aimlessly at the empty, beautiful blue sky. This was a standard anti aircraft weapon for the Japanese. The breechblock is a horizontal sliding, semi-automatic design which opens on recoil and closes upon insertion of a shell. The recoil system is hydropneumatic.
These two relics were found on the southern end of Taroa.
Landing Craft
Between the coastal defense gun and the “L” shaped pier is an old, rusted, Landing Craft (LC-1250) built in the 1950s. This ship is 30 meters (100′) long still has most of its super structure. The U.S. government gave this landing craft to RMI government to carry cargo between the atolls. It was scuttled and left on this beautiful soft sandy beach in the 70’s.
Bunkers
Our tour guide, and the local Policeman, Arry Latty has one of the few intact and currently in use bunkers on his property. He used to live inside the bunker jbut has since moved out to a neighboring home. These structures were constructed to last centuries.
Arry allowed us to go inside and explore one of the two bunkers. They are short, but long, narrow spaces that could easily house over a dozen people on each side. They are equipped with super thick windows and gun placement windows (for lack of better description). Everything inside is rounded or beveled to reduce sharp edges and injury. Arry mentioned that his village would use this space in the event of a cyclone, so they are still protecting the locals today.
We stumble across several other bunkers that are covered in vegetation and “not habitable” according to Arry. The bunkers in the forest are camouflaged and covered which make them hard to see from the sky (and the ground) and keeps them cool inside (if you could get inside).
Ammunition Depot
The ammunition depot is a massive concrete storeroom that used to store a significant amount of the explosives. The exterior building is completely hidden in the jungle and covered by vegetation. There are two sets of gargantuan steel doors which still move today — with a lot of effort.
You can still see the concrete entry where the trucks used to load and unload the ammunition. Inside is a massive chamber with large concrete reinforced posts and enormous steel supports. Many cement bags were left behind. It is easy to imagine racks and racks of explosives carefully stored inside.
On the side of one of the walls is a gigantic hole where the ammunition depot was hit. The cement and rebar forced inward from the massive blast. It is actually surprising to see how well intact this building is considering it suffered from heavy bombing.
We found what we think is another ammunition depot deep on the other side of the island. it has the same double steel doors and inside is a vast space supposed by concrete columns (top 3 photos). We also stumbled on another building that had a round, steel piece on the ceiling/roof. Clearly both were severely damaged.
Come back for our next blog post where we share the remains of the hospital, pillboxes, an explosive shell, Zero airplanes and more.
I found a really great blog post that help confirm the type of artifacts we were looking at and viewing. It is a cruiser who visited awhile ago, visit Nothing Unknown.
Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events. We did the WWII tour on Taroa, Maloelap in early November 2024. Be sure to read about the WWII History in Maloelap found on our last blog post.