Suicide Cliff
Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II.
Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where thousands of Japanese civilians and soldiers committed suicide by jumping to their deaths in 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States, as Japanese propaganda emphasized brutal treatment of Japanese such as American mutilation of Japanese war dead.
Many Japanese feared the "American devils raping and devouring Japanese women and children." The precise number of suicides there is not known. One eyewitness said he saw “hundreds of bodies” below the cliff, while elsewhere, numbers in the thousands have been cited. A contemporary correspondent, praising their actions as "the finest act of the Shōwa period", described them as "the pride of Japanese women."
By 1976, a park and peace memorial was in place and the location had become a pilgrimage destination, particularly for visitors from Japan. In that year, of the site were listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
The cliff is, along with the airfield and Banzai Cliff, a coastal cliff where suicides also took place, part of the National Historic Landmark District Landing Beaches; Aslito/Isley Field; & Marpi Point, Saipan Island, designated in 1985.
