Oral History Interview with Manual Sablan, July 8, 1997

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Manual Sablan. Sablan was born in Saipan and became a messenger for the Japanese police when he was a teenager. Japanese troops had occupied his family home by that time. To remain safe during bombardments, Sablan lived in a manmade cave behind the police station. He recalls seeing six American prisoners of war in the jail. When the bombing became very heavy, Sablan went to look for his mother, but fires blocked his way. Without caves to hide in, he used a machete to fashion wooden shovels for digging foxholes. He was hiding near Talofofo, having eaten nothing but sugar cane for two weeks, when he surrendered to Americans. Sablan was sent to Camp Susupe, where conditions were terrible. Eventually he was given a job at the 369th Station Hospital in San Vicente, where badly wounded soldiers from Iwo Jima and Okinawa were given medical treatment. He became a police officer in 1951 and participated in the capture of a Japanese soldier who was discovered in a cave in 1952. He became the sheriff of Saipan and then the director of public safety for the Trust Territory