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Toppled Japanese Lighthouse at Dalap, Yap Island

We visited a toppled Japanese lighthouse on Yap in September. We assumed the lighthouse had been destroyed by an American bomb strike. I spoke with a Corsair pilot in August 2006 who advised me that the pilots used the lighthouse to test their guns before attacking other areas on the island. We found a lot of bullet holes in the concrete structure to confirm this fact. However, my assumption that the American's toppled the lighthouse is wrong. I found the following information (see below) that provides some history and explains how the lighthouse was toppled.

" We visited the Japanese lighthouse at Dalap, a hill in Lebinaw Village, in Gagil municipality. The lighthouse is a concrete and stone structure apparently built and abandoned over a three-year period between 1940 and 1944. In the latter year, the allied forces bombed Yap and other islands in the western Carolines, targeting prominent landmarks like the lighthouse; but they did not succeed in toppling the lighthouse. That was left to the Japanese, who apparently took matters into their own hands and finally destroyed the lighthouse tower by blowing it up with dynamite. This stopped the continuous shelling by the allied forces. Today, the site is covered with papaya trees, seeded by birds. The toppled lighthouse remains, along with the remains of a generator building, the entry posts, and several other structures." Passage from: http://www.intangible.org/Features/micronesia/text/Yap13.html

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