HALÅGUAK

 

There was a time when the sound of the name HALÅGUAK sent shivers down the spine of some war survivors.

Often spelled JALAGUAC in the old days, according to the Spanish manner (just like Inarajan, Acfalle and Y Sengsong are spelled following Spanish ways), Halåguak is the area just north of Maite and south of Tiyan.

JALAGUAG 

1913-1915 Map

Being flat land, the Japanese decided that Halåguak (besides Orote near Sumay) was excellent terrain to build an air strip for the coming battle with the Americans. That's where it got hard for the Chamorros forced into work teams laying out the air strip. Since the strip started in Halåguak but headed in the direction of Tiyan, the next locale, some people refer to the airstrip as being in Tiyan. The Japanese called the field Guamu Dai Ni (Guam No. 2), Number 1 being Orote Field.

Prior to the war, Halåguak was used for farming. Some of the families residing in Halåguak in the 1940 Guam Census were Muñoz, Flores and Perez families, among others. 

There was enough of a local population to justify a small school in Halåguak.

Students at Halåguak's school came from all the different barrios in the area; Maite, Tiyan, Ungaguan, Barrigada, Leyang, Toto and the other locales.

Chamorro males aged 12 to 65 were drafted into the labor crews. Although the people living in the vicinity were prime targets for the draft, forced labor came from all parts of the island, loaded onto trucks and taken to Halåguak. Even people from Hågat and Malesso' testified that they were forced to work in Halåguak. The workers were organized by village and the different villages would be assigned different shifts. It was a 24-hour project, even when the sun set and it was all dark.

Machinery was lacking. A lot of things had to be done by hand and muscle : clearing the land, spreading the coral and beating it down into the ground to be compact. A little dynamite might be used to loosen part of the terrain, but most of the work was done manually.

AIRSTRIP CLEARLY SEEN ON THIS MAP

The Chamorros were housed in tents, where it was often too hot to sleep in. Latrines were just trenches dug apart from the tents, but out in the open and they attracted the flies which swarmed the camp. The flies wouldn't let go of the people, day or night.

Even women were drafted, gathering wood or cutting down grass.

The Japanese were not shy in beating or whipping workers they felt were too slow. The Japanese sometimes didn't need a reason to beat up Chamorros. One was punched for just not having the "right look."

AMERICAN PLANES FLY OVER GUAM

shooting at will

If being beaten and forced to work by the Japanese wasn't enough suffering, the Chamorros were also in harm's way thanks to the Americans. The Americans couldn't let the Japanese airstrips be completed, otherwise that would be a military asset to the enemy. So Halåguak airfield was a prime target for American bombs and shooting. The problem was Halåguak airfield was full of Chamorro workers, who would run and scatter when the American bombed or strafed the area.

My mother wasn't very clear about where she saw this, but my family did live in the Barrigada area during the Japanese Occupation, so not far from Halåguak. My mother, aged 16 at the time, would be standing in the open and, all of a sudden, she and others would cry out, "Hikoki! Hikoki!" (Airplane! Airplane!) and they would all run for cover. The American planes would go up and down, diving to shoot at anything that moved.

THE WHITE STRIP IS HALÅGUAK AIRSTRIP

Northeast of the bombed-out City of Hagåtña in 1944

By the time the Americans landed on July 21, all the work at Halåguak had ended and the Chamorros had fled or had moved to the camps set up by the Japanese to keep the people away from the Americans.

The Americans, too, wanted Halåguak and Tiyan, to even surpass the Japanese in using the field as an airbase. By the time the Americans reached Halåguak on August 2, Japanese resistance was not significant. Starting at 630AM, the Americans won control of the airfield by 910AM.

FROM JAPANESE TO AMERICAN

Using all its mechanical might, the US expanded the airstrip and it played a roll in the continuing war against Japan which went on for another year. In 1947, the airfield was turned over to the US Navy and it became Naval Air Station Agaña. It was closed in 1995.

HALÅGUAK IN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION

JALAGUAG IN SPANISH DOCUMENTS

All the old documents, from both Spanish and American times, call the place Jalaguag, spelled in slightly different way (sometimes Jalaguac).

JALAGUAG IN AMERICAN DOCUMENT FROM 1928

All the man åmko' I have spoken to, and their testimonies written in newspapers, call the place Halåguak (again, spelled in slightly different ways). The differences are merely between Spanish J (which sounds like an H, as in JOSE and JUAN) and English H, and the ending hard consonant, whether it be a G, a C or a K.