PITI NAVY YARD

PITI NAVY YARD IN 1944

Just before US bombardment

For most of us, Piti is a small village we mainly pass by on our way north or south on Guam's western side. 

If you have friends or relatives there, you stop by, not pass by.

You may work at Cabras and pass through Piti on a daily basis, or when business requires you.

Fish Eye, Veterans Cemetery and the annual fiesta are some of the other reasons why most of us spend time in Piti now and then.

But at one time, before the war, Piti was a lot more active in Guam's island life, and the action was right in the village and not out on Cabras as much of it is today. Back when ocean travel was the only way to get to Guam, Piti was a key link in that chain of travel.

PITI LANDING

Even in the 1800s during Spanish times, Piti was an important site on Guam as the main landing point for arriving passengers from the sea.

Ships would anchor in Apra Harbor, but passengers would then get in little boats and land at a pier at Punta Piti (Piti Point). Landing at Piti rather than Sumay saved people a couple of hours' journey to Hagåtña. Even from Piti, it took over an hour for people to get to Hagåtña by horse-driven carriage on a gravel road. It took longer if by bull or karabao cart.

When the Spaniards surrendered to the Americans in 1898, the surrender took place at Punta Piti. That way the Spanish officers and soldiers could get on transport boats right away and go to the waiting ships to take them as prisoners of war to Manila.

The port's pilot, responsible for guiding vessels into Apra, lived in Piti and met arriving ships on his little boat. Enterprising men rented out boats and carriages at Piti for sea and land transport.

When the Americans took over Guam in 1898, they continued to use the pier at Piti for landings.

NAVY YARD

But greater things were in store for Piti. The Americans would build up Guam militarily more than the Spaniards had done in a long time. The Americans also had the benefit of  huge improvements in technology by the time they came along.

The landing facilities at Piti were to be expanded. There had already been a pier and boat houses, and maybe even a customs house, under Spain but under the US an actual Navy Yard was to be built and developed over time. The Navy Yard was able to handle small activities such as transporting passengers and cargo from ship to land. In time, to this was added minor and emergency ship repair facilities.

Right up to the war, two patrol boats were docked at the Piti Navy Yard.

All of this came with all the newest tools and supplies needed in modern transportation. Workshops and warehouses were built. In 1941, eight American Navy men staffed the Yard, separate from the patrol boats' crews, and 31 Chamorro Insular Guardsmen. The US could have done more, and some in Washington wanted to build up Guam more. But the 1922 Washington Treaty between the US and Japan limited any militarization that could provoke the other party.

Every time a ship pulled into Apra Harbor, many people from Hagåtña would go down to Piti to see who was coming on island. Some people described it as almost a holiday on Guam when a ship paid the island a visit.

The strong typhoon of November 1940 (typhoons weren't named back then) severely damaged the Piti Navy Yard. But the Navy rebuilt the Navy Yard just in time for the Japanese to take it over.

PITI NAVY YARD AFTER 1940 TYPHOON

WORLD WAR II

UNDER JAPANESE COMMAND

The Japanese knew of the importance of the Piti Navy Yard so they made it one of their targets when they attacked Guam on December 8, 1941.

But Japanese bombing of the Yard did little damage. The Japanese were able to make use of the Yard without needing to repair much.

Prior to the Japanese taking over the Yard, the Americans scuttled the two patrol boats.

When the Japanese gathered all the American Prisoners of War on Guam, they were brought down to the Piti Navy Yard to be taken out to the Argentina Maru and shipped off to the prison camp in Japan.

The Japanese did almost nothing to build on or improve the Yard in the short time they had it. They had too much fighting going on in the rest of the Pacific to devote any attention or resources to developing Guam.

The irony is that is was the Americans themselves who destroyed their own Navy Yard when the US returned to take back Guam in 1944. The US bombed everything on Guam they felt the Japanese were located or could use to their advantage. Sadly, a lot of historic and non-military assets on Guam were forever destroyed by those American bombs.

The US flag flown at yard was secretly hid for the entire Japanese Occupation in a pillow by Gaily Roberto Kamminga, one-time Commissioner of Piti.

PITI NAVY YARD DESTROYED IN WAR

Bomb craters dot the Piti landscape on right

After the war, the US military decided not to rebuild the Piti Navy Yard. Instead, Sumay and the whole Orote Peninsula would be turned into a modern naval base, many more times the size of a simple Navy Yard.

Today, the area where the Piti Navy Yard used to be, and the area where the Piti pier used to be, and the spot where the Spaniards surrendered to the US in 1898, and where the Americans in turn were sent away by the Japanese, is a fuel storage area by the power plants and where Atlantis docks its boats.

WHERE THE YARD WOULD BE TODAY