P-MAN III - 9             

Ngatpang/Execution/POWs (continued)

3.  Preliminary report concerning Palau Execution and Burial Sites, by Mr. M.Emerson Wiles, CILHI

23 November 2001

On 15 November 2001, in search of the possible burial site of Jesuit priests, Yapese civilians, and American airmen, Katarina Katosang led a CILHI team to a hilltop in Ngatpang, Palau. Japanese occupying forces referred to this hilltop during WWII as "Gasupan Hill." Mrs. Katosang was a teen during WWII and remembers the night in September 1944 that the Japanese Kempeis executed and buried 6 Jesuit priests, and a young Yapese family on Gasupan hill.

War Crimes testimony from the 1948 U.S. Navy War Crimes trials held in Guam, suggests that three American B-24 crewmen were also executed and buried in the same place shortly after the Jesuit executions. Testimony also indicates that British national Charles Smith was the last known victim to be killed and buried by the Japanese in the Gasupan Hill area.

After the war, Mrs. Katarina Katosang remembers visiting Ngatpang (Gasupan Hill) with a friend and looking for the priests' gravesite. Mrs. Katosang recalls finding a cross that she believes marked the priests' burial site. These memories have been with Mrs. Katosang since the war, and with great anticipation on 15 November 2001 she led the CILHI team to the area that she and her friend had previously located. The location pinpointed by Mrs. Katarina Katosang as the burial site of the Jesuits matches a sketch of the execution/burial site drawn by execution participant Sergeant Masao Ichimiya IJA. Near the location identified by Mrs. Katosang, the CILHI team located a possible exhumed burial pit. This finding is consistent with war crimes testimony indicating that all corpses were exhumed from their holes, cremated, and reburied by the Kempei following Japan's surrender.

In addition to the three American executions on Gasupan Hill, Ltc Teshiko Yajima testified at the Guam War Crimes trials that American B-24 crewmen were killed at a Japanese Command Post (CP) referred to as Arukokuzan. This CP was located somewhere between Army Commander General Inoue's jungle headquarters at the Tropical Experiments Station (TES) and the Kempei Tai headquarters at Gasupan. Although the location of the TES and the Kempei Tai headquarters is known, the site of the former CP has not been located.

M. EMERSON WILES III
WWII/Global Analyst
CILHI

You can view the other sections of this report by clicking the navigation arrows at the top or bottom of the page, or click the following links to view specific other sections of the report:

1. Summary Report, 4-16 October 2000, by Professor Donald R. Shuster, University of Guam
2. Summary Report, 13-15 November 2001, By Dr. Patrick J. Scannon, Bent Prop Project
3. Preliminary report concerning Palau Execution and Burial Sites, by Mr. M. Emerson Wiles, CILHI (see above)
4. Interim Overall Summary and Conclusions

Page last modified 23 April 2005