On January 20, 1942, the Marine Brigade arrived with 5,600 officers and enlisted men with their heavy artillery to defend the island. Natives were also recruited to form a Samoan Marine Brigade known as (Maligi Samoa) that consisted of 350 men.
Expansion of German influence
During the second half of the 19th century, German influence in Samoa expanded with large scale plantation operations being introduced for coconut, cacao and hevea rubber cultivation, especially on the island of 'Upolu where German firms monopolised copra and cocoa bean processing.
At the outbreak of war, Samoa was of moderate strategic importance to Germany. The radio transmitter located in the hills above Apia was capable of sending long-range Morse signals to Berlin. It could also communicate with the 90 warships in Germany's naval fleet.
Samoa came under German rule at the end of the second civil war in 1889, with the agreement that Samoa would retain its normal customs.
For the Allies, also, it was a great strategic victory: the Japanese were prompted to cancel their plans to invade New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa and lost all but the last vestiges of their earlier strategic initiative.
When Laupepa died, the second Samoan Civil War broke out in 1898. Germany, the US and UK were again battling for control of the Samoan islands. The archipelago would eventually be divided between the Germans and Americans in 1899 at the Tripartite Convention. These became known as Western Samoan and American Samoa.
Operation FS was the Imperial Japanese plan to invade and occupy Fiji, American Samoa, Samoa, and New Caledonia in the south Pacific during the Pacific conflict of World War II. The operation was set to be executed in July or August 1942 following Operation MO, Operation RY, and Operation MI.
The arrival of fast food restaurants and other contemporary food items on the islands are one of the issues responsible for the obesity in Samoa. The earliest photographs of Samoans provide visual proof of the native population's natural physique before the introduction of processed foods by Western society.
The country was a colony of the German Empire from 1899 to 1915, then came under a joint British and New Zealand colonial administration until 1 January 1962, when it became independent.
Archaeologists believe that Polynesians settled in the Samoa Islands about 3,000 years ago. Their great migration halted here for some 1,000 years before voyagers went on to colonize the Marquesas, Society Islands, and other island groups farther east.
Samoans are Polynesian and there are few other distinct ethnic groups, though some elite Samoans have part Chinese or European (especially German) ancestry.
Chinese began coming to Samoa in the late 19th century, arriving as workers on European merchant ships and drawn in by German companies to work on the country's extensive plantations. Soon a Chinese population existed in Samoa and began establishing its own businesses and enterprises.
The first wave of Chinese migrants settled in Samoa in the late 19th century, with a select few becoming established business entrepreneurs prior to the influx of indentured labourers from China administered under German and New Zealand control.
None of these Samoan-Germans today speak German, but the word “German” still has a positive ring in Samoan ears. After the Second World War, even though their own country was hardly prosperous, many Samoans with German “relations” sent CARE packages to starving Germans in war-ravaged Europe.
During World War II, Pago Pago, on Tutuila, was a lightly-manned base in the Samoa Islands vital to preserving communications between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Though the U.S. Navy was tasked with holding it, the 7th Marines were ordered to fortify the garrison.
As World War II began, the Samoa islands were an essential link in the chain of communications between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, a sea lane that also ran through the Fiji island. Holding the line drawn from Midway to Samoa, Fiji, and Brisbane against the Japanese was considered essential.
Samoa's first people were seafarers who, guided by the stars, arrived on outrigger canoes around 1,000BC. Ancient myths and legends say the first people descended from the heavens and gods to inhabit these islands, however, It is believed they came from Tonga.
In July 1997 the Constitution was amended to change the country's name from Western Samoa to Samoa.
He says the study also found that modern Samoans come largely from the Austronesian lineage (people in Taiwan, Island Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar) and share only 24 percent of their ancestry with Papuans, the descendants of the people who settled Papua/New ...
It appears to be “heavily influenced by globalization” and “the shift from subsistence agriculture to excess consumption of high calorie, processed foods and sedentary lifestyles.” “Infants in American Samoa show a remarkably rapid gain in weight but not in length in early infancy compared to U.S. infants,” she says.
Polynesians are also known for their unique combination of physical characteristics: tall stature, a large muscular body, a robust skeleton, and a strong tendency toward obesity (Katayama, 1996). Katayama (1996) proposed that these characteristics were the result of hypermorphosis.
The United States had an interest in Samoa from early settlements in the 1830's. The U.S. government had a very strong interest in eastern Samoa, now American Samoa, primarily for its excellent harbor. US transport companies and land development interests were very active in Western Samoa, now an independent nation.
Throughout 1914, many Samoan-born men enlisted in their homelands and went on to fight at Gallipoli, the Western Front, and various places in France and Belgium. They were employed in the munitions depots with the Rarotongans, doing extremely dangerous work.
Germany, the US and UK were again battling for control of the Samoan Islands. In 1899 after years of civil war, the islands of the Samoan archipelago were divided – the Germans taking the islands to the west and the Americans taking the islands to the east, now known as American Samoa.