Warisboring has an interesting report on Tinian, long a U.S. Territory/Dependency that makes up one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands just a few miles off from Saipan (where a maritime prepositioning squadron of ships chills out).
If you are a military history buff, you know Tinian well.
Part of the Spanish Empire from 1521, the Spaniards sold the chain to Kaiser Wilhelm in the great worldwide colonial going out of business sale that followed that country’s defeat in 1898 by the US of A.
Fast forward to 1914 and British ally Japan quickly gobbled up the island, moving over 15,000 colonists from the overcrowded Home Island there by the time the balloon went up in 1941. The island was then pried from Tojo’s hands during the Battle of Tinian in 1944 during which only 313 survivors were left standing from the 8500-man Japanese garrison. You don’t want to know what happened to the Japanese and Korean civilians.
2nd Division Marines disembark from their LST at Tinian Island, 24 July 1944.
Anyway, Seebees landed and built a huge airstrip from which, on 6 and 9 AUG 1945, B-29s of the 509th Composite Group (Enola Gay and Bockscar) took off from to carry Little Boy and Fat Man to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The military kept a presence on Tinian through the 1980s and now, with a population of just ~3,000 locals, is looking to get back into the swing of things.
Tinian’s North Field
You see, besides holding on to semi-abandoned fields at Shemya, Wake, French Frigate Shoals and Midway, with the possibility of China plastering Guam and Okinawa in a Pacific WWIII scenario, Tinian would be nice to have as a backup– and is within strategic air-range of Beijing and Taiwan.
