High praise for new book on post-WWII Guam

We Fought the Navy and Won: Guam’s Quest for Democracy, by Doloris Coulter Cogan, is a carefully documented yet impassioned first-person account of Guam’s struggle to liberate itself from the absolutist rule of the U.S Navy in the years following World War II.

In her book, Cogan focuses on the crucial five years after Liberation Day in 1945, when the people in Guam stood up to the Navy in their desire for self-determination. We Fought the Navy and Won is the first time the detailed story has been told of how Guam was transferred from the U.S. Navy to the Department of the Interior.

It is “documented with scrupulous notes and appendices that gather material otherwise scattered, if not fugitive, for future historians,” according to John J. Fisher, professor emeritus and peace activist at Goshen College, who reviewed the manuscript. The book contains 24 appendices, nearly 200 notes, and 47 photographs.

Several Pacific Islands authorities were also invited to read Cogan’s manuscript: Dirk A. Ballendorf, Ph.D., professor at the University of Guam and director of the Micronesian Area Research Center, wrote, “Insightful and well done. [The book] will be an important contribution to the literature.”

Marjorie G. Driver, author of The Spanish Governors of the Marianas Islands and the Saga of the Palacio, stated, “Ms. Cogan presents what might be called ‘the missing link’ between the promises made by the United States to the people of Guam in 1898 and the realization of the document that would guarantee them basic civil rights: the Organic Act of August 1, 1950.”

“My first reading was like that of reading a thriller,” wrote Byron W. Bender, editor of Oceanic Linguistics. “In this case I knew the outcome, but not the details of the denouement, so I lapped them up greedily and yet impatiently. I wanted to get to the end and confirm that it came out okay. …But there was an element of disbelief, too. How could Messrs. Collier and Ickes be so brazen, impudent, and seemingly fearless in the war of words waged with the Pentagon? There were risks, even in the ’40s, to challenging the military industrial complex. Yet this doesn’t seem to have given anyone pause, Ickes or Collier or the dedicated staff of the Guam Echo—all two of them! They were up against an 800-lb gorilla of sorts.”

Peter Walshe, professor of political science and a fellow of the Joan Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame says the book “is a pertinent reminder at this moment in the 21st century that a superpower, once able to influence human rights around the globe, is capable of relapsing into an autocratic unilateralism offering the world John Collier’s worst fear: ‘no future except one of tooth and claw.’”

“This book is an historical eye-opener on the struggle of Guamanians in their quest for democracy and their ultimate victory over the Naval blockade,” according to Ret. Navy Cmdr. Richard Takahashi. “It was so interesting I could hardly put it down. I think it should be provided to the U.S. Naval Academy, all of the military’s Command and Staff Schools, as well as all universities with Navy ROTC program.”

To mark the publication of her book, Cogan will be traveling from her home in Elkhart, Indiana, to visit Guam timed before the 64th anniversary celebration of Liberation Day. She will be arriving July 16 and departing July 22. She will make a stopover in Honolulu from July 11 to 14 to promote her book there.

We fought the Navy and Won: Guam’s Quest for Democracy retails for $24 in paperback and for $45, hardcover. Books may be ordered directly from the University of Hawaii Press, toll-free phone 1-888-847-7377, or 808-956-8255; email: uhpbooks@hawaii.edu; or online at: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu. [B][I](PR)[/I][/B]