CHamoru nurses posing for a picture with Japanese medical administrators and staff during World War II in Guam.

Prior to the start of World War II, the US Navy had trained more than 80 CHamoru women as nurses.

During the 32-month Japanese occupation, these nurses along with Dr. Ramon Manalisay Sablan, the first ever CHamoru medical doctor, were the primary source of health care for the CHamoru people.

Some CHamoru nurses were ordered to continue working at the hospital in Hagåtña, once run by the US Navy, now taken over by the Japanese. All medical supplies were confiscated on the island. The new occupiers had put in a rule that all Japanese personnel were to receive medical care before any local people. CHamoru nurses, frustrated by this discrimination smuggled small amounts of medicine from the hospital when they could, to bring to friends and family.

With access to modern medicine hindered by the war, nurses and the community in general turned to traditional forms of healing learned from suruhånu/suruhåna, known today as yo’åmte, to help those in need.