MY conviction that I had explored and
written short pieces about every nook and cranny that Tinian had to
offer was proven wrong a few weeks back when I went on a photography
jaunt with Australian professor and photographer Dirk Spennemann.
After
taking photos of the Atomic Bomb Pits, airstrip and the Air
Communications building, Spennemann parked our rented car in a grassy
portion at the roadside a few meters away from and hauled his giant
camera from the backseat. Although I had driven around several times in
that area before, the place we were heading to was unfamiliar. Asking no
questions, I followed him, pausing now and then to take photos of
things that caught my interest.
We hiked through a tree-lined path cut
into a coral hill for a few minutes before I saw where we were heading
for. A massive concrete building dug into the bedrock and protected with
heavy steel plate doors was at the end of the trail, sharp pieces of
steel sticking out of its thick concrete roof and walls. The building,
although obviously sturdily built, was broken and shattered.
We went just inside the door of the
structure. I couldn’t see a thing and Spennemann told me to wait until
my eyes get adjusted to the darkness. Very soon, objects like drums and
huge pillars began to take shape. I trained my camera at half-shutter in
different directions for some seconds before pressing it and looked at
the viewfinder. I saw hundreds of burned out drums and pieces of steel
inside the bunker, all in disarray at the floor. After taking a few more
photos, my being a claustrophobic started to take over and I found it
hard to breath. With no exit, it was humid inside. I groped my way
outside, thankful for the breath of fresh air when I emerged from the
structure.
A marker at the side of the building
tells the story that one of the fuel storage structures was ignited
sometime during the first days of American invasion and the fire got so
intense that Marine battalions nearby were prompted to move to a
different position. Because of the heat, huge concrete slabs stripped
from the ceiling and in exploded fuel drums.
Picking our way slowly to avoid the
slippery and muddy patches on the road, we went around to the other side
of the canyon and saw the cement slabs that were the remaining pieces
of the fuel drum storage. The Japanese bomb storage and fuel drum
storage are among the most remarkable Japanese military structures on
Tinian.
We left the place with more gigabytes of
photos in our memory cards and an additional piece of history on a relic
on Tinian that played a big role during the World War II. If you think
that one day is enough to visit Tinian and explore its cultural and
historical wealth, you can think again. The island has so much to offer.
