WWII Relic Hunting in Saipan Update

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers,

As I get closer and closer to leaving Saipan, I have been busier than ever looking for relics and having fun digging in the jungle.  Today is an update for you of some of my exploits and research for those interested in collecting, want to try a new hobby, or simply like history and investigative blogging.  These pictures were taken all over Saipan, but as usual I will let them do the talking.  One unfortunate thing that did happen recently is that many of the coke bottles I sent back wrapped still managed to break in the USPS... I wish the mail would take better care of my find.  I guess in the future I will have to double wrap bottles... ugh.  On a happier note, don't forget to click on the image for a bigger picture.

These are only some of the hundreds of bottles that I see at this one point along Obyan Beach. I decided it might make for a cool picture if I were to show the amount of beer American forces drank and disposed in just one part. There were hundreds more along this small section of shoreline I didn't pick up.  If any one would like to hike with me to this point and get dirty doing so feel free to facebook message me and you can come along.  It might be just above the place some call "Boy Scout."

This is a picture of a Japanese Cache I found along Obyan. I only took two of the bottles because I didn't want to carry too much weight. If anyone wants the other 3 feel free to come with me and I will take you there.  There were 4 or five other bottles that were broken due to rain and falling down the cliff.   

A=  Armstrong Cork Company Bottle that may have contained Lysol for disinfection during the war.  Most bottles I can find online, however, say that such bottles were amber colored.  I could not find much more information on this bottle since it is clear...

B= Wild Root Hair Tonic Bottle.  This company was originally locally owned and operated in Buffalo, New York during the war.  I imagine that during this time the company grew too large for its britches and was sold to Colgate/Palmolive Co. for $10.5 million.  A website article on this company can be found on:
http://www.forgottenbuffalo.com/forgottenbuffalolost/wildrootfactory.html

C= Standing at 11 ½ inches tall this bottle was made by the Kirin Beer Company of  Japan. It is identified by the mark that has a vertical line with a sideways lower case “m” with a “V” superimposed over it.  You can kind of see the mark in the picture.  This online article was very helpful to me in my research:
http://sfu.academia.edu/DouglasRoss/Papers/154927/Identification_and_Dating_of_Japanese_Glass_Beverage_Bottles

D= This is what I believe to be the biggest sake bottle I’ve found on Saipan as it stands just under 16 inches tall. It held 1800ml of liquid and has two identification marks on it, neither of which I was able to find online as of yet, but will continue to try and find out its origins at some point.   What I did learn from reading a graduate thesis about Sake is that during the war rice and those need for brewing Sake were in short supply. The serving style changed and no longer did they use a tokkuri (a large clay flask) to serve warm sake, but rather added ethyl alcohol to sake because of the rice shortage and started putting the liquid in large glass bottles. This occurred during the “Showa Period” 1926-1989.  The blue color of the bottles may be related to the fact that Sake traditionally has many spiritual links. One such link is to the mythological creature the “Kappa” which is a water spirit.  Perhaps the blue is meant to symbolize water or even various other Shinto spirits.  This graduate thesis was a big help to me in understanding sake in the Japanese culture:
http://www.well.com/~pyarrow/tokyo/thesis05.pdf 

E= 1-Way Beverages, American Amber Beer Bottle 10 ½ inches tall with stamps on the bottom 3A 2765 GK  Duraglas

F=Might be a WWI canteen.  I found this canteen in the jungle of Saipan along with another that was missing the top.  This one has only one small hole in the side and no cap.  I believe it is WWI because there is no ridge going around the center of the canteen.  During the war, many troops did not have adequate gear and were using things from WWI until the arms industry kicked into gear (literally hahaha).  If it is not an American Canteen it may be Japanese.  I say that it might be Japanese only because the threads on this canteen appear on the outside unlike the example G Canteen below, of which I am certain is American.  I still hold to my gut feeling though that this is a WWI canteen because from what I have seen Japanese canteens were mainly corked and not threaded.

G=This canteen was gifted to me by a friend on the island and is in better condition in that it does not have any holes, but is missing the cap.  This is a WWII infantry canteen.  The ridge exists because during the war they would fit into a nice metal holster that troops could tie to just about anything in case their carrying pouch broke.  I suppose they could have even eaten out of the holster as it would have made a good soup container.   I’ve heard on documentaries that troops even used helmets to cook food sometimes among other uses.

H= This is a hair/scalp product bottle I found in the jungle that is from 1936, but was used throughout the war.
Lucky Tiger MFG  Co. is still in existence today in Kansas City, MO.   A funny ad from the period is shown on this link below and matches the bottle description.  The ad was shown on pg. 55 of Liberty Magazine in 1936.  The bottle changed shape in the 1950’s.    
http://gogd.tjs-labs.com/show-picture?id=1191891856&size=FULL

I hope you enjoy my history lesson and can share in the joy of relic hunting.  Saipan Time is also Guam time:

WWII Relics and Exploration on Saipan

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

It is time for me to write again about my adventures while exploring, but rather than write too much about the experience I'm going to let the pictures do the talking and write information below them for those that are interested in the history or may be interested in proper identification of things. I hope you enjoy the pictures and find the information useful in your relic hunting and boonie stomps. Oh, and before I forget, these photos are taken from Naftan Point and from the public land between the two cliff lines near Santa Lourdes Shrine Saipan.  Remember to click on the pictures for a better view.

A picture of me wearing my dad's old Martin Sexton (an indi-rocker) shirt with five of the six blue WWII Japanese bottles I found.  I cannot say for certain if they were beer or wine bottles as I am finding there is a lot of misinformation out there on the internet as to their identification.  I do know that the bottle making process was different as the tallest bottles have holes near the neck where the could be opened like expensive beers from Europe.  The smaller blue ones I believe to be wine bottles that once held a simple cork.  While at this location, I also found a dark olive green bottle that is smaller and has Japanese writing all over it.  I am not sure yet what it is, but from what I have read it may be a Japanese cider bottle.  That was probably my find of the day I think.

This a WWII beer bottle from Nippon Brewery LTD of Japan.  Dai Nippon was originally founded jointly in 1906 by three different beer companies in Japan.  After the war, this beer company was bought by Asahi in 1949 and split into two major groups one that continued to produce Nippon Beer and the other Asahi. I am not sure if this bottle will be worth something someday, but perhaps it will because of its uniqueness.

Some cool sites for identification of Japanese bottles are 

Japanese Beer Timeline for Research of Dai Nippon Brewery LTD:

http://www.asahigroup-holdings.com/en/company/history/index.html

 

Great PDF Link for Proper Identification of Japanese Bottles:

http://www.sha.org/publications/technical_briefs/volume04/article_02.pdf

This is a Bireleys Soda bottle from circa 1940's. This particular bottle was most likely an orange soda bottle; however, it may also have held grape.  I couldn't find too much online about this bottle, but Bireleys produced at least 4 main products including: orange, grape, natural fruit (w/o carbonation), and milk.  I didn't really find this bottle so much as I came across a pile of bottles someone had left near the side of the road at Naftan. Since this was the only bottle of the three Bireley bottles that had the stamp still visible I took this one.  On e-bay they are selling for $4-10.  Websites that talk briefly about Bireleys are listed below:

 http://www.angelfire.com/tn/traderz/bireleys.html & 

 

http://www.usasoda.com/Bireleys.htm

View from the cliff line I was exploring near Santa Lourdes Shrine

This is a picture of one of the three/four?  gun emplacements at Naftan.  You can see the small ammunition storage bunks.  I'm guessing there would have been a huge gun in the center of each of these.  I'm really not sure what the history is behind these emplacements but seeing how well they have withstood the test of time shows Japanese skill. Concrete reinforced with re-bar. To see them in the jungle is really astonishing.  I may update this later if I find out more from American Memorial Park in Saipan.I imagine Iwo Jima as having similar heavily fortified gun emplacement designs.

I thought this was a pretty cool picture of a Japanese grenade that had been decaying where it was left.  You can see the fuse to the left surrounded by the hard metal shell.  The green,white, blue inside is the decaying T.N.T.  While watching a documentaries of WWII I learned that Japanese used all sorts of grenades and mines.  On Guam, one was so powerful it flipped a Sherman tank on its back!  This was taken at Naftan.

A bomb or at the very least some type of mortar lying in the middle of a trail at Naftan, undisturbed.

This is a bomb or large mortar shell I found split open and decaying at Naftan.  The length of this shell was at least 4 ft. long maybe longer.

A friend of mine said this structure at Naftan was located on the highest point and once held a Japanese radar dish on top of it.  To the left of this structure, not in the picture, are the remains of a fortified building that was destroyed.

This is a picture I took at Naftan Pt. On the right side of the road there is a short trail leading to this vantage point.  During the war, the Japanese must have had this exact view because just below the picture frame is a coral wall they built and while looking out at Obyan Beach you stand on large slabs that they must have used for traction.  I'm sure This would have been a great gun emplacement at one time.

Crazy picture of a butterfly at Naftan next to where my car was parked.  Turning on the flash in a dark jungle makes for a cool picture sometimes.

Saipan Time is also Guam Time:

World War II Relic Hunting Update

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

As many of you know, I enjoy hunting for WWII relics and I thought I would share some of my pictures from various adventures.  The photos for this particular blog entry are from various locations around Saipan.  The bottle was found in the jungle near Obyan Beach.  The fragment of a Japanese grenade and the fuse cap were found in the jungle off the road that leads to Naftan Point.  There are plenty more of these where this came from.  Last, but not least, the picture of a pile of ordinance that I stacked up for a photo was taken at the old munitions dump (a.k.a. FEBC radio towers cliff line in Marpi)  Even though it has been swept by professionals hired by the government there is still a lot of munitions lying around, which can be very dangerous.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and their explanations.  Remember to click on the pictures to view them in enlarged fashion.

Sincerely,

Grant

One of the things that has come in very handy in my collecting of relics is Muriatic Acid.  This liquid is highly poisonous and the fumes are easily enough to make you light headed.  You know the bottle is dangerous when it has a skull and crossbones on the outside and each time you take off the cap vapor comes out.  This liquid is often used for cleaning swimming pools and easily eats away at most metals.  If a grenade or piece of metal is too rusted, this liquid will eat away at the rust and grime.  When the relic has spent enough time in the liquid, I bathe it in WD-40 to protect it from further corrosion.  Always put this acidic liquid in a plastic container with water i.e. a Maxwell House coffee container.

These are some strange pilings I found embedded into the earth at Obyan beach shoreline between Obyan and Naftan.  I'm not sure what they were used for or what may have existed at this point.  I have yet to extend the trail I've been cutting further down the beach.

This is a WWII sanitation bottle used for hygiene. I found the bottle in the jungle off of Obyan Beach.  It could have also been an old 40's motor oil bottle.  Either way I found the patent for the bottle on Google patents at: 

http://www.google.com/patents?id=QFNpAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Des+94231&hl=en&ei=Fa_RTtjYIYmRiAKYv9WdBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Des%2094231&f=false

The bottle was patented by Glenn A. Mengle of Brockway, PA on Jan. 1, 1935.

This is what I believe to be the base of a Japanese hand grenade from WWII.  Japanese grenades were rather large and had a lot of steel on the outer shell.  Unfortunately they were not made as well as American grenades and you rarely find the outer shell in tact due to corrosion.  So, if you think this grenade doesn't look like a grenade that is because the rest of it has rusted away or been blown off.

This is the other view of the grenade.  The reason I wanted to show this view of it is as a warning to fellow seekers. I've been told that the circular ridge you see as a barrier between the center circle and the outer hexagonal shell is actually old T.N.T. The inner circle is a stick of dynamite that either didn't light or has been exposed after countless amounts of corrosion.  I've been told that this T.N.T. is still viable.  The government needs to clean this stuff up because a person with the knowledge to do so could carefully drill a hole into the stick of dynamite and insert a fuse.  I found this fragment of a grenade on the road leading to Naftan Point in the jungle. They were scattered all throughout the jungle.

These are my trail markers if you ever see an orange trail marker with a black cross you can say that Grant Fifield has been there on Saipan, MP.

This is a pile of ordnance that I collected one day while exploring the cliff line at the FEBC radio tower facility that is soon to be closed down. In the front of the pile are many pieces of American grenades and to the left large shell casings that had exploded along the cliff line as American forces pushed toward their goal of Suicide Cliff in Marpi.

Saipan Time is also Guam time:

Relic Hunting/Identification & Research

Dear Friends, Family, and Readers:

     If you are new to our blog thank you for taking the time to read and learn.  Sometimes I forget that people I have never met read our blog.  While on Saipan, I often struggle to find fun things I can make my own.  Since I don't spearfish, do not have a pole to cliff fish with, and do not have animals to shoot on the island, I must do other things to keep myself busy.  If it isn't embroidery or working on my Bible devotional sports book, I am instead working on research behind relics that I've found.  One relic category that is very common on Saipan (even Managaha) is the search for WWII era glass bottles.
      During WWII, soldiers often drank lots of Coke, beer, and various other spirits.  When they finished these bottles, soldiers would often discard their bottle by throwing it into the jungle or the ocean.  The Japanese also threw bottles into the jungle or buried them as they tried to store supplies or family goods.  Occasionally passing boonie stompers (people who explore the jungle) will come across such dump sites or bottle caches.  Even construction companies and contractors come across such caches when fortunate enough.  In Duluth, MN (my hometown) we often hunt for agates at gravel pits.  I liken the search for bottles and other relics to this same treasurer hunting desire I had as a kid looking for agates in gravel pits.  Here are some of the bottles I've found and the explanations I had to painstakingly discover through research.  You'd be surprised at how many different types of glass, bottle shapes, and identification techniques that exist!  Below the pictures and their explanations are some websites I used in my research that may help you identify your own bottles on Saipan or where you live.  Happy hunting and hobby enjoyment to all!

This is the first thing needed to clean bottles I found it in the toilet section at the local Ace Hardware store. I often put all my glass bottles into a white mop bucket and fill it with water and dish soap.  Do not use Lime Away or other cleaner as it may scorch the glass (found that out the hard way).  I looked for a warning about this but did not see one on the bottle, but then again, I do have terrible eyesight haha

First lesson about relic hunting and hobbies: Don't let your hobby get between you and your wife.haha  These two bottles are made of Duraglas, which was commonly used during WWII.  As the name implies these bottles are "durable" and do not break easily.  Though these bottles look similar they were made by different companies.  The amber bottle on the left was most likely a WWII Beer Bottle.  I know this is WWII era because of the identification stamp on the bottom.  An "I" inside of an "O" with a diamond superimposed over it represents Owen's Illinois Glass Company.  The diamond was removed from bottles made after 1954.  Another indication is how the word "Duraglas" appears on the bottom.  If it is in wavy italics it was made between 1940-1963.  After 1963, the word was made using block lettering.  The green bottle on the right was most likely another type of beer bottle.  I know this bottle is from 1943 because the stamp on the bottom of the bottle indicates this.  The stamp on the bottom also has a "G" inside of a square, which told me this was made by the Glenshaw Glass Company of Glenshaw, PA.  This company existed from (1895-2004).  This company stopped production in 2004 for upgrades and was then bought out several times by various companies including the famous "Anchor Glass Ltd" (they make Pyrex).  It is now known by the name Kelman Bottles.  In the end, I kept the green bottle because I didn't need two WWII era beer bottles. The green bottle also reflects nicely in the window and has the year of production on the bottom, which I think is cool.

This bottle is what the Coca-Cola Company calls a D-Patent Coke bottle.  They are given this name by the large D-Patent numbering below the name Coca-Cola.  The reason that coke bottles were in patent dispute at this time has to do with soda marketing at the time.  Marketing wanted to make drinking soda attractive and elegant.  One of the ways to do this was use thick class, embossed lettering, and adding waves or dimples to bottles.  Interestingly enough I have not found any other WWII soda bottles on Saipan.  Perhaps Coke gave the Saipan troops free soda and so there were more Coke bottles than other types...?  I will keep my eyes peeled now that I know what I'm looking for.  Other soda bottles I saw online that had similar "elegance" were Canada Dry, 7 Up, Crush, among other brands that are both around today and are not around today.

What I would really like to find are some blue Japanese wine bottles form WWII.  In Saipan, you can find a lot of broken bottles in the jungle, but coming upon whole bottles is much more difficult.  If you are interested in doing your own research on bottles here are some of the helpful websites I found in my research that may also help you in your quest:

For identifying glass bottle stamps/embossed marks:

http://www.myinsulators.com/glass-factories/bottlemarks.html

 

For the history and further identification of glass bottles see:

http://www.sha.org/bottle/

For the identification & history of Coca-Cola bottles:

http://www.antiquebottles.com/coke/

I hope you enjoyed learning more and possibly discovering a new hobby.  

Sincerely Yours, Grant 

Time in Saipan (Standard Chamorro Time) is also Guam Time: