Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92327
The Catholic cemetery of Anigua became the home of approximately 7,000 Guamanians liberated from Japanese rule. Here a family lives in a temporary shelter.
The Japanese were plenty feisty at Finegayan, and in a telling thrust dispatched two medium tanks which skirted the crossroads of the 9th Marines at Junction 177 and went up the Finegayan-Mount Santa Rosa Road. Impervious to Marine fire, the tanks shot up the area and got away. Another tank force of undetermined size then rumbled down under cover of a mortar barrage and it looked like the beginning of a counterattack. Artillery stilled that Japanese effort. The enemy tanks were driven off but survived to reappear again another day.
It was in one of those typical sudden enemy attacks around Finegayan that Private First Class Frank P. Witek, with automatic rifle and grenades, raced ahead of his own tanks to destroy an eight-man Japanese position which was holding back elements of his 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. He succeeded, but was killed. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
CONSTRUCTION of NEW ROAD
302d ENGINEER COMBAT BATTALION
Taken From OCMH in GUAM. 77th DIV
Only Approximate Form Lines Shown
Beginning of the End
On 4 August, the new frontlines and scheme of maneuver were being set up to keep pressure on General Obata and his holdouts, and make a place for General Shepherd and his brigade. During the afternoon, the brigade reached its northern assembly area and General Shepherd set up his CP near San Antonio. In the final advance north, the brigade would be on the left with its inland flank within a mile of the western beaches. The 3d Division would be in the center deploying its units on a three-regiment front which would swerve to the east to take in the whole northern end of the island and as well support the 77th Division.