Apra Harbor, also called Port Apra, is a deep-water port on the western side of the United States territory of Guam. It is considered one of the best natural ports in the Pacific Ocean. The harbor is bounded by Cabras Island and the Glass Breakwater to the north and the Orote Peninsula in the south. Naval Base Guam and the Port of Guam are the two major users of the harbor. It is also a popular recreation area for boaters, surfers, scuba divers, and other recreationalists.
Geography
The geography of Apra Harbor has been extensively modified from its pre-historical state by humans. The entrance to the harbor is flanked by Point Udall, formerly Orote Point, to the south and Spanish Rocks at the tip of the Glass Breakwater. The Glass Breakwater, built on top of Calalan Bank and the fringing Luminao Reef, connects to Cabras Island, the location of the Port of Guam, which handles more than 90% of civilian cargo imported to Guam. Inland areas in the villages of Piti and Santa Rita form the eastern boundary of the harbor. There are two small artificial peninsulas jutting into the eastern end of the harbor. The northernmost is named Drydock Island, the tip of which is a military reservation with wharves for fueling ships. South of Drydock Island is Sasa Bay, one of five marine preserves created by the Government of Guam. The southern boundary of Sasa Bay is formed by Polaris Point, a geographically separate part of Naval Base Guam that is the homeport of Submarine Squadron 15. Polaris Point and the Orote Peninsula form the entrance to Inner Apra Harbor, a military restricted area. The Orote Peninsula holds the main part of Naval Base Guam and is approximately four miles to its tip at Point Udall. There are two named large coral formations roughly west of Sasa Bay in Outer Apra Harbor: Western Shoals and Jade Shoals.
Ten rivers flow into Apra Harbor: Atantano River, Sasa River, Aguada River, Big Guatali River, Aplacho River, Maggo River, Guatali River, Laghas River, Tenjo River and Paulana River.
Census designated place "Apra Harbor" is also a census-designated place (CDP) in Guam that comprises Naval Base Guam and housing extending into the hills of Santa Rita village. In 2010, the population of the Apra Harbor CDP was 2,471.
History
Apra comes from the Chamorro word "apapa", meaning "low." Apapa is the original name of Cabras Island. The harbor offered rich fishing grounds and was home to many Chamorro villages.
During Spanish rule, the name of Saint Louis IX was added and the harbor was referred to as the port of San Luis de Apra. However, it was not a favored anchorage during the Spanish–Chamorro Wars of the late seventeenth century and resulting the early Spanish period, mainly because of the many reefs and coral heads. The Spanish preferred ports were Umatac and Hagåtña, resulting in Apra Harbor being used by foreigners seeking to avoid Spanish authority. The English pirate John Eaton is reported to have anchored at Apra Harbor in 1685 to trade provisions with Chamorros.
In the early 18th century, Spain's Council of the Indies grew increasingly concerned about competing navies threatening the Manila galleon trade and Spain's possessions in the Pacific. This was aggravated by an attack in 1721 by the English privateer John Clipperton upon a supply ship from Cavite anchored at Merizo. In 1734, Governor Francisco de Cárdenas Pacheco opened up new anchorages in Apra Harbor, and built three cannon batteries or forts to protect them. Fort San Luis was built in 1737 near Gab Gab and Fort Santiago was built at Orote Point to guard the entrance to the harbor. The third fort, Fort Santa Cruz, was built around 1800 atop a reef near the entrance to the harbor.
William Haswell, an officer on the first documented American visit to Guam in January 1802, wrote a description of Apra Harbor:
Apra Harbor was thus used more frequently in the nineteenth century. Piti became the primary port, used to connect to the capital in Hagåtña. Meanwhile, Sumay became a popular port of whalers, in particular during the height of Pacific whaling in the early 1800s. In the 1840s, up to 60 whaling ships stopped in Apra Harbor every year, turning Sumay into the commercial and financial center of the island. The decline of whaling by the end of the nineteenth century also resulted in the economic decline of the port, and lack of maintenance to the harbor defenses. Even in 1817, Otto von Kotzebue reported that Fort San Luis was no longer in use. The three cannon at Fort Santiago were reported unusable in 1853 and, in 1884, Governor Francisco Olive y Garcia declared that Fort Santiago was useful only as an observation post. By the time of the 1898 Spanish–American War none of the three fortifications was in operation.
American capture
American captain Henry Glass had received intelligence that Spanish men-of-war were anchored at Guam and that the harbor itself had formidable defenses. However, when Glass arrived in Apra Harbor on June 20, 1898 to claim the island on behalf of the United States, he encountered no resistance. A Marine Barracks Guam was established on Sumay in 1901, and a small navy yard at Piti. Apra Harbor was used as a coaling station, refueling ships transiting across the Pacific. The new American Naval government also began to develop the harbor, though launch boats were still required to navigate the coral reefs to land at Piti and Sumay. In 1903, the Commercial Pacific Cable Company laid submarine communications cable for telegraph through a station at Sumay, linking the United States to Asia, and each to Guam, for the first time.
On April 7, 1917, the scuttling by her crew of SMS Cormoran, a German merchant raider that had been held in Apra Harbor for two years, was the first violent action of the United States in World War I, first shots fired by the U.S. against Germany in WWI, the first German prisoners of war captured by the U.S., and the first Germans killed in action by the U.S. in WWI
In 1922, dredged materials from the harbor were used to fill the coastline at Sumay and a seawall was constructed, among the first large scale man-made changes to the shoreline. On March 17, 1921, U.S. suspicions of Japanese intentions for its South Seas Mandate led it to create a U.S. Marine Squadron floatplane base at Sumay. Guam's first golf course, Sumay Golf Links, was established in the village in 1923. The U.S. eventually decided to close the seaplane base at Sumay on February 23, 1931. In 1935, Pan American Airways established rights to use the former Marine Aviation facility and made Sumay a base for its China Clipper. the first trans-Pacific air cargo service, flying from San Francisco to Manila, arrived at Sumay on November 27, 1935 and the first passenger service flight on October 21, 1936.
In the 1930s, the Empire of Japan traded with Guam specifically with the view to increasing its knowledge of the island. With tensions rising after the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria starting the Second Sino-Japanese War, Rear Admiral Arthur Japy Hepburn was appointed on June 7, 1938 to chair a board to provide recommendations on the American response. The resulting Hepburn Board Report recommended a massive buildup of U.S. Navy facilities. The Report recommended fortifying Guam as an air and submarine base, with many improvements to Apra Harbor, but the Navy balked at the estimated cost, eventually designated $5 million for Apra Harbor improvements. A strong typhoon struck Guam on November 3, 1940, causing widespread damage. In Apra Harbor, the storm damaged the Navy Yard at Piti and the Marine barracks and Pan American Airways facilities at Sumay. The U.S. Navy's YM-13, which had been dredging a channel near Sumay, was blown ashore and a yard patrol boat sunk.
Among the Hepburn Board Report improvements that was funded was the construction of a breakwater upon Luminao Reef, which began in August 1941. Limestone blocks quarried at Cabras Island were skidded along the reef to an improvised derrick. By the time of the Japanese invasion, one mile of breakwater, 36 feet wide five-feet above sea level had been constructed. A 1946 Navy report notes, "practically all the [Hepburn] board's recommendations, except those relating to Guam, were carried out and contributed materially to our position when war actually developed." During the 1941 Japanese invasion, Guam was practically defenseless.
World War II
During the Japanese occupation of Guam, the residents of Sumay were evicted and the town converted into a Japanese garrison. The harbor itself was extensively used by Japanese vessels, including for repair and refueling of their submarines and warships. Orote Peninsula was the center of Japanese resistance during the U.S. liberation of Guam in 1944 and the area around the harbor saw intense fighting. Both Piti and Sumay were leveled by the pre-invasion bombardment and very few harbor improvements survived.
Clearance, salvage and harbor construction began before the island was fully secure by advance elements of the 301st Naval Construction Battalion ("Seabees") (NCB 301), tasked with salvage, clearing and developing ports even as fighting prolonged ashore, arriving in in the first days of August. Full scale development began with arrival of the NCB 301 headquarters and barracks ship on 11 August 1944.
Constructing harbor facilities was the highest priority and the Seabees began installing pontoon piers. Construction at the first pier, at an old Navy fueling site on Cabras Island, required blasting to get to a depth. This first pier was constructed between August 5 and 22, 1944. By October 1, six piers were operational and a seventh was being built, when a typhoon destroyed or severely damaged all the pontoon piers. At the same time as piers were being constructed, two other massive projects were occurring. The Glass Breakwater, named after the captain who captured Guam in 1898, was extended on Calalan Bank to a width of . The northern arm of Apra Harbor, from the main island through Cabras to the tip of the breakwater at Spanish Rocks measured .
Construction of Inner Apra Harbor required of dredging and of quay wall. A small boat pool and a submarine base with a finger pier was established in the Inner harbor. Small boat repair facilities at Piti were repaired and improved. Navy News noted that over 7,000 tons of explosives had been used in 1944 to clear ship passages in Guam. of these explosives is enough to destroy a volume of coral deep. By July 1945, two months before the end of the Pacific War, there were 14 quay-wall berths, nine pontoon piers, two wooden fueling piers, ten Landing Ship, Tank (LST) berths, and one submarine pier.
The residents of Sumay were not allowed to return and rebuild their homes, and the U.S. military relocated them to a refugee camp in the nearby inland hills in 1946. Unbeknownst to them, Admiral Chester Nimitz had requested 55% of Guam be set aside for military use, including all of Sumay. In 1946, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 594, The Guam Acquisition of Lands Act, allowing the U.S. Navy to acquire any and all lands it deemed necessary on the island. In 1948, the military filed Civil Case No. 5-49 in the Superior Court of Guam, declaring a taking of Sumay, as well as parts of Piti and Agat, totaling 2,471 acres, with little or no compensation. The refugees from Sumay created the village of Santa Rita, the municipality in which the Orote Peninsula is now located. The population center of Piti was relocated away from its old shoreline along Apra Harbor.