4 WWII veterans to visit this Sat.

Four World War II veterans, together with 25 college students, will be arriving in the Commonwealth this Friday, according to Pacific Development, Inc. director Gordon Marciano.

He said the group will be touring Saipan on Saturday and will be heading to Tinian on May 17 and 18.

Upon their arrival they will be staying at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan on the evening of May 15.

“The group will be on tour on Saipan on Saturday throughout the day and in the evening we have arranged for them to be at the Taste of Marianas,” Marciano said.

“Pete Callaghan [Veterans of Foreign Wars Saipan representative] is preparing the medals and certificates that we will be presenting [to them] on Tinian on the evening of May 17th, unless the Marianas Visitors Authority permits [that we] do it at the Taste of the Marianas,” he said.

Marciano said there were five WWII veterans who were supposed to visit but one won’t be able to make it. He has no information on who won’t be coming. The five veterans are:

-U.S Marine Corps’ Patrick Thornburgh, who participated in the liberation of Saipan and Tinian.

-Mason Fitch, 20th Air Force, 313th Wing, 504th Bomb Group, 398th Squadron, who arrived in the CNMI on Jan. 1, 1945, and served as a radio operator for bombing missions to Japan.

– Gonzalo Garza, 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions on Saipan and Tinian.

– George Gross, U.S Navy Seabees, who built the runways on Tinian used for the bombing missions (and)

– Leonard Porter, U.S Army Air Corps on Guam and Saipan who flew 40 combat mission against Japanese-held islands in B24’s.

The 25 students that will be arriving with the veterans are from the College of the Ozarks in Missouri and are under a program called the Patriotic Program, where they invite World War II veterans to go back to where they fought during the war, and match them up with a student from the college who, in some cases, had a family member in the same battle.

The students have been all over the world, including Europe, the Pacific, and Asia.

“Valour Tours has handled their Pacific and Asia tours for the past four years to the Solomon Islands, Philippines, and China. They are winding up their WWII patriotic programs as the veterans are getting too old to travel, and are moving on to Vietnam War veterans,” Marciano said.

This will be the first time for the CNMI to host a group of college students accompanying the World War II veterans.