Last Japanese Command Post — Attraction in Saipan

Beautiful outdoor memorial. Lots of interesting tanks, cannons, and miscellaneous remnants. Interesting stairway leading up, around the side, and down the back end of what was used as a hiding bunker and looks like the back wall was blown out. Small gravel parking area across the street, which runs right in front of the park.

The Last Command Post and the Okinawa Peace Memorial are side by side, all part of the same park. In front of the Okinawa Peace Memorial - a large open concrete platform - we saw a group of Asian visitors meditating and honoring an extended moment of silence, which was beautiful, peaceful and fitting, versus some of the other scenic points nearby with sad histories, in which tourists flocked to...

The Last Japanese Outpost inside Mount Tapochao stands as a stark reminder of the desperate final holdouts during the Battle of Saipan. Its proximity to Suicide Cliff and Bonsai Cliff ties these sites together in a grim story of defeat and despair, where soldiers and civilians faced impossible choices fight to the end or leap into the sea. Visiting this outpost, one understands the profound connection between the fierce resistance here and the tragic endings at the...

This a pretty neat place to visit. Of course the monuments have kind of overtaken the area but you can climb up in a cave and almost get a sense of what it was like hiding out in that outpost. Again, a very sobering place. Just above is the cliffs where people jumped with their families to escape a lie promoted by the local media. If they would have only known the truth. How many lives could...