The small Bikini community had developed a close in-group
feeling during the years of relative isolation prior to the
‘coming of the white man and found satisfaction and security in
their closely knit personal relationships and communal life.
-Worlid War II and the Bikini People
The Bikini people were directly affected by World War II
in that three of their young men who had been attending the
Japanese government school on Jaluit Atoll were drafted as
laborers and sent to Enewetak Atoll.
They were later killed
there in the American bombing and bombardment of that huge and
important Japanese military base.
There were only six Japanese
soldiers at Bikini, however; wireless station operators also
manned the ammunition stores.
American bombing and shelling.
These men were all killed by
Little damage was done {o Bikini,
however, and the Bikini people were much better off than
Marshallese in areas such as Jaluit, Enewetak and Kwajalein,
where heavy fighting occurred.
The Bikini people suffered as
aia the other Marshallese, from the cut-off of supply lines
from Japan with the resultant cessation of imports of necessary
consumer goods and exportation. of copra.
Communications were re-
stored and wartime hardships were alleviated when the American
armed forces captured the Marshall Islands early in 1944,
The
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serious hardships of the Bikini people were yet to come however.