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Kasperbauer, Carmen_Z26_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Audio_public.mp3

Kasperbauer, Carmen_Z26_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Audio_transcript.pdf. Carmen Artaro [sp?] Kasperbauer was dressed as an angel for the feast of the Immaculate Conception on Monday, December 8, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Guam. She was six years old and attending mass with her older sister Maria and her father. They heard a lot of airplanes and later an explosion. The priest let them go when they did not hear more planes approaching. Everybody was screaming and running, and the girls lost track of their father but were found by their aunt, who took them home. Their father and mother and siblings were sitting in their truck filled with household goods. Carmen thought her father had abandoned them and did not learn until after the war that he had asked her aunt to look after her so he could run home to her mother and siblings and get ready. As they drove the truck, people were hanging onto it, and Carmen’s father had to fight them off.

They stayed in their aunt’s house on the family ranch for the rest of the war. It had no electricity and no running water and an outhouse. Occasionally they went to Agana and stayed at their own home. Carmen recalls that people had to get out of their trucks and bow deeply to the Japanese guards, and if they did not bow properly they would be punished. On one trip, Carmen’s mother was carrying a letter from George Tweed to Mrs. Johnston and was afraid she would be searched. At the beginning of the war there was enough food, but eventually things got harder. The Japanese would pass by their house on the way to the lighthouse they were building, and they would usually try to come during mealtime and would chase the family off the table and eat the food. When Carmen’s family saw the Japanese coming, her mother would keep the baby and smaller kids near her because she thought that would protect her from being raped or molested, and the older children would go hide in the jungle.

Carmen remembers always being hungry on the ranch and watching her parents prepare food for her father to take to the jungle for George Tweed. She did not know whom it was for and resented it. She says it seemed like there were a lot of secretive things going on. Later her father started making fewer trips into the jungle and she began to help him carry the food, and they would have to be careful not to be seen by any Japanese. He would leave her in the jungle to gather something and told her he was taking the food to the Japanese in the nearby lighthouse, but she did not notice the contradiction. One time he left her for a long time in the jungle and she thought he was getting rid of her because there wasn’t enough food to feed everybody at home.

Carmen recalls another incident where she was playing and imitating a bird, saying “tweet, tweet, tweet,” and her mother told her never to say that and hit and kicked her. She thought her mother hated her and only later learned her mother was concerned that somebody would overhear and associate them with George Tweed.

Carmen says when her father first saw Tweed he decided to help him because he was gaunt and reminded him of Jesus Christ before he was crucified. Her father remembered learning the biblical saying “I am my brother’s keeper” and took Tweed in. A lot of people wanted to help save Tweed because of their belief in American democracy. Others were angry that Tweed had not turned himself in. While Tweed was hiding he did not know what the Chamorro people were thinking. The Japanese were interested in getting Tweed because he was the only radioman on the island, and they wanted his help to spy on U.S. military activity in the Pacific.

When the Americans were bombarding the island, Carmen’s dad took the last of the provisional food to Tweed’s cave and planned to tell him he couldn’t bring more food. Tweed had left a note that he had signaled an American ship and left the island. Carmen’s father returned to the ranch and the family planned to go to the Japanese concentration camp. As they were preparing to go, two Japanese came by, first to get another male relative and then to get Carmen’s father, under the guise of repayment for food from the ranch. Carmen ran and got a rifle or shotgun her father was hiding in a hollow tree. He refused to go with the Japanese and, after they left, took the family to Tweed’s cave. They remained there until August 8th, Carmen’s birthday, when Americans arrived and gave them a little food.

Kasperbauer, Carmen_Z26_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Audio_transcript.pdf