Oral History Interview with Sister Antoinette Ada All Tracks

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Antoinette Ada. Ada’s idyllic childhood in Saipan was interrupted when Japanese troops occupied her school. Subsequent bombing by the American military drove Ada and her family to hide in caves. Three of her siblings went ahead of Ada and her parents to the cave, never to be seen again. It would be another 50 years before she learned that they were killed by a bomb. Her father led the family to a cave near Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff. He was shot and killed while foraging for food at night. Ada’s mother tried to leave the cave and bring her children back home, but she too was shot. Ada and her brother hid in the jungle until surrendering to Americans as a last resort to avoid starvation. She was initially sent to Camp Susupe, where conditions were much worse than the Chamorro camp, Chalan Kanoa, to which she was transferred. Ada remained in Saipan after the war, but her surviving brother was sent to Japan. She found him in the 1960s. Ada attended college in the United States, entered a convent in her late 20s, and spent 11 years as a missionary in Japan.

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