Swapmeet Finds #3497

According to the article below, this base on Guam was called "Naval Operating Base" (just your typically uncreative government name). And I think our Uncle Maurice must've been stationed there shortly AFTER WWII. Or at least towards the end of the war. Everything looks far too peaceful to have been during the shooting part of the war. At least in that area.

https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/jrm/installations/navbase_guam/about/history.html

Birth of Naval Base Guam 1944

On July 21, 1944, now known as Liberation Day, American forces landed on Guam and after almost three weeks of bitter fighting that claimed 1,600 American servicemen and almost the entire 18,000 Japanese Army, not to mention the approximate 800 Chamorro lives lost throughout the occupation, the island was declared ‘secure’ and the American flag raised again amid the rubble of the former US Marine Corps barracks in Sumay, Apra Harbor.

Today’s naval base surrounds that same location and is the result of construction under Navy’s *“Lion Six” that landed on Guam within hours of the first Marine landing. A “Standard Lion” consists of a group of components intended to furnish everything needed for the complete operation of a large base. It is assembled elsewhere, in this case in the US mainland in April/May 1944 and shipped to location.

The area was officially named “Naval Operating Base” in October 1944, and was the largest single element of WWII Fleet support in the Pacific. It was nicknamed “The Pacific Supermarket” and built to support the ongoing Pacific campaign against Japan. Navy Seabees molded jungle and mangrove swamp into a self contained Navy supply base housing 50,000 personnel and complete with an expanded harbor and repaired and expanded airfield, new docks, ship repair facility, submarine base, 3,000 Quonset huts and more than 1000 major structures. Where there is open space today, in 1944 Quonset huts and buildings stood jammed together. This base was the largest of more than 100 smaller installations constructed around the island manned by another 150,000 Sailors. Guam’s local population was estimated at 20,000.