The Potsdam Conference: July 26th 1945 – The Potsdam Declaration

At the beginning of WWI, Japan captured the island of Tinian, located around 1,500 miles south of its mainland, and gained formal control of it in 1918.

Prior to that, Spain had colonized the island in the late 17th century before selling it to the German Empire in 1889. Even though Germany had administered the island, there was never a real attempt to develop or settle it, so it mostly remained under the control of its Spanish and native landowners.

Japan only realized in the later stages of WWII that the United States could take advantage of Trinian’s strategic importance for making future attacks on its mainland. Therefore, they eventually set up an approximately 8,000 man defense garrison around the island; and as predicted, just months later, the United States launched an attack on the island on July 24th 1944.

After eight days of battle, the United States 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions, the 147th Infantry Regiment and three Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) destroyed the garrison and took control of Tinian. Work immediately began thereafter on constructing a massive air base that would take up close to the entire surface of the approximately 40 square mile island.

While the air base was being constructed, the Americans interestingly created a ‘mini-Manhattan’ of sorts by laying out the base in a pattern of city streets resembling New York City’s Manhattan Island given its somewhat north to south topographic resemblance (not so much its east and west). Its ‘new’ streets were named accordingly: 8th Avenue, Broadway, 86th Street, Riverside Drive, West End Avenue, Lenox Avenue, Central Park, and Greenwich Village were all used as names for the island’s new design. As a matter of fact, the former island’s city of Sunharon was nicknamed “The Village” because its location corresponded to that of Greenwich Village in New York.