Artillery and Anomalies: Marine Remote-sensing off Guam’s WWII Invasion Beaches

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "From Whalers to World War II: Guam Underwater Archaeology", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In February 2023, a research team completed the first comprehensive and systematic marine remote-sensing survey of the WWII invasion beaches on Guam. The Asan and Agat units of War in the Pacific National Historic Park (WAPA) were forever changed in July 1944. The invasion beaches are not only the center of a WWII amphibious battlefield, but part of a broader maritime cultural landscape. As a consequence of international, national, and regional maritime activities and especially warfare, Guam is a high probability area for unexploded ordnance (UXO), military materiel dump sites, and shipwrecks. The team collected side-scan sonar, magnetometer, multibeam bathymetry, and backscatter data to locate and identify cultural material offshore Asan and Agat beaches to aid the NPS in their responsibility to protect and preserve what remains of those battles for future generations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• From Whalers to World War II: Guam Underwater Archaeology

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow