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: