Reply #11: Not an active one, but... [View All]

...there was still a hell of a lot of stuff lying around from WWII that noone had bothered to clean up. Isley Field was the main heavy bomber base on the island during the war and it seems like several ammo dumps were just abandoned in 1947 when the base closed and allowed to rot until they were rediscovered during airport construction in the early 1970s. The situation on Tinian was the same.

My dad was Chief of Construction for Micronesia at the time, and he was always telling stories of having to call in the Corps of Engineers to deal with WWII ordnance that seemed to get dug up on every major project he worked on. One or two Micronesian workmen a year would get blown up by it.

I don't know how much is still there, but on my last visit to Saipan four years ago, much of the island was still covered with boonies, so I'm guessing there's still a lot.