Tinian

pop (2000e) 2500; area 101 km²/39 sq mi. One of the N Mariana Is, W Pacific, 5 km/3 mi SW of Saipan; length 18 km/11 mi; four long runways built by the USA during World War 2; plaque commemorates the launching of the Hiroshima bombing mission in 1945; site of ancient stone columns.

Tinian is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. Tinian is about 5 miles (8km) southwest of its sister island, Saipan. Together with uninhabited neighboring Aguijan Island (2.74 sq mi, or 7.09 km²), it forms Tinian Municipality, one of the four constituent municipalities of the Northern Marianas. Lightly populated, but heavily garrisoned by Japanese forces in World War II, Tinian, with its sister islands, had passed through Spanish and German hands prior to becoming a Protectorate of Japan after World War I.

Tinian was captured by the United States in July 1944 in the battle of Tinian. The Japanese had constructed three small fighter strips on Tinian but none were suitable for bomber operations. When the United States turned the entire island, excepting its three highland areas, into a 40,000-personnel installation, construction engineers laid out the base in a pattern of city streets resembling Manhattan and named the streets accordingly. The area south of West Field which was developed from the main Japanaese installation at Sunharon was nicknamed "The Village" because its location corresponded to that of Greenwich Village, and a large square area between West and North Fields, used primarily only for the location of the base hospitals and otherwise left undeveloped was called Central Park.

It was from Tinian that the bombers carrying the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man were launched against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is a memorial on the old airfield at the bombbay loading pits, which had been filled in for safety reasons but were both recently excavated in conjunction with the 60th Anniversary Commemoration of the Battles of Saipan and Tinian. It has only two gas stations and its main attraction is the Tinian Dynasty Casino. The airport is rather small and it takes a five-minute flight to get from Tinian to Saipan and vice versa.