By Ben Wheeler
HISTORIC black and white photos showing American WWII military operations in Guam have come to light in the wake of nuclear threats made against the United States territory by North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un.
The startling images show brave US soldiers recovering from their wounds in hospital and tending to injured colleagues on the battlefield during the struggle for power in the wake of the Pearl Harbour attacks.
Other photographs reveal the eerie sight of empty stretchers at the scene of a dawn attack by Japanese forces and Japanese prisoners of war, with their heads bowed listening to Emperor Hirohito’s unconditional surrender to the US.
On Tuesday, North Korea’s official news outlet announced that the country was considering carrying out missile strikes on the Pacific island, which has been an American territory since liberated the Guamanian people from a near three-year tyrannical Japanese occupation in 1945.
This was in response to President Donald Trump’s inflammatory statement that any threat to the United States from the regime in Pyongyang will be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
The images are a stark reminder as to the historic significance of Guam, with tens-of-thousands of both soldiers and civilians losing their lives there across two major battles in the 1940s.
Current citizens of the territory are now living in a similar fear to that of previous generations who populated the usually idyllic island as their anxieties grow about the ever growing nuclear shadow being cast over them by North Korea.
