by Daniel Wrinn
The first assault wave contained LVT [A]s (armored amphibian tractors) with their swiftly firing 75mm guns. Escorted by light gunboats firing 4.5-inch rockets and 40mm guns. The LVTs could negotiate their way through the reef. But the gunboats could not and had to turn around until they could uncover a passage through the reef.
Farther north at 0600, a diversionary landing was organized off Tanapag harbor by the 2nd, 24th, and 29th Marines. The Japanese were not deceived and didn’t rush any reinforcements to the area. But the ruse tied up one complete enemy regiment.
When the LVTs reached the reef, the battle exploded. Water fountained from mortar and artillery shells exploding in every direction. Rifles, machine guns, and small arms fire joined the crescendo as the LVTs ground ashore.
Mayhem spread through the beaches, mainly in the 2nd Marine Division area. A northern current caused the 6th and 8th Marine assault battalions to land five hundred yards too far north. This created a gap between the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions. Colonel Hogaboom, operations officer of the Expeditionary Troops wrote: “The opposition consisted primarily of artillery and mortar fire from weapons placed in well-deployed positions. Previously registered to cover the beach areas, and fire from small arms, automatic weapons, and anti-boat guns sited to cover the approaches for the nearest landing beaches.”
The result was five of the 2nd Marine Division assault unit commanders wounded. Afetan Point, in the middle, was raked by deadly enfilade fire to the left and right. This allowed two battalions of the 23rd and 25th Marines to cross the gap. The original plan was for the assault troops to ride their LVTs to the first objective, the O-1 line. But the surge of enemy fire and natural obstacles prevented this.
A few units in the center of the 4th Division made it through, but fierce enemy resistance pinned them down on the left and right flanks. This prevented the two divisions from making direct contact.
In the 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, a young lieutenant recalled his extraordinary experience on the beach when he came ashore: “All around us was chaos and bitter combat. Marine and Jap bodies laid in mangled and grotesque positions. Blasted and burnt-out pillboxes. Burning wrecks of LVTs knocked out by high-velocity Jap fire. The acrid smell of high explosives. Shattered trees. And the churned-up sand littered with discarded equipment.”
After his company moved inland a short distance, he experienced the terrifying pre-registered Japanese artillery fire: “Wham! A shell landed right on top of us. I was too surprised to think, but instinctively, we all hit the deck and spread out. Then shells poured down on us: behind, ahead, on both sides, and right in our midst. They rocketed down like a freight train, thundering, and exploding into a deafening roar.
“I realized the first shell bursts we heard were ranging shots. Now the Japs had zeroed in on us, and we were pinned down in a full-fledged barrage. Their fire hit us with pinpoint accuracy, and it wasn’t hard to see why: Fifteen hundred feet above us were Jap observation posts honeycombing the crest of Mt. Tapotchau.”
That night the lieutenant and his runner shared a foxhole and split watches. Death came close again: “The hours of my watch passed slowly. I leaned over to shake my runner awake. ‘It’s time for your watch,’ I whispered. ‘Watch out for that place over there, might be Japs in it. Stay awake.’ After that, I rolled over and was asleep in an instant.
“As if it was right away, someone shook me and insisted I wake up. I jerked and bolted upright—your reflexes act faster in combat, and you never entirely go to sleep. I glanced at my watch, and it was almost dawn. I turned to my runner, lying against me asleep. ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Pass the word to squad leaders to get set.’ But he didn’t move. I shook him. Again, he didn’t move. He was dead. With all the barbarity that war demands, I rolled him over, took his canteen, and poured the precious water into my own. Then I left him lying there. Dead.”
The assault regiments took casualties from constant shelling zeroed in by spotters on high ground. Reinforcing and supply units piled up from the confusion on the landing beaches. Snipers lurked everywhere. The support waves experienced the same deadly enemy fire on their way to the beach. Many LVTs took direct hits, others were flipped over on their sides by waves or enemy fire—spilling equipment and personnel onto the reef. Casualties in both divisions mounted. Evacuating them to the ships was dangerous and difficult. The medical aid station set up ashore was also under enemy fire.
Marine artillery landed in the late afternoon on D-Day to support the infantry. They received deadly-accurate counter-battery fire from the Japanese. General Harry Schmidt, in command of the 4th Division, came ashore at 1930 and later wrote, “The command post during that time did not function very well. It was the hottest spot I was in during the war.”
Major James (Jim) Donovan, executive officer of the 1/6 Marines, survived a mortar bombardment with uncanny timing and precision: “We entered a little village called Charan-Kanoa. We had stopped to get some water and were washing up and resting when mortar shells fell on us. We saw a tall smokestack hiding a Japanese forward observer. He was directing fire and looking right down on us. It didn’t occur to anyone that someone could be up in that smokestack after all that naval gunfire and everything else fired into the area. But he was sure up there all right. He killed a lot of Marines from G Company that day.
“He caught us without foxholes. We had a false sense of security. We thought we could relax. Wrong. We had to dig holes in a hurry. It’s hard to dig a hole when you’re lying on your stomach digging with your chin, knees, toes, and elbows. While it’s possible to dig a hole that way, we lost more Marines than we should have before someone located that Jap observer. I don’t know how tall that smokestack was, but at least two or three stories high. From up there, he saw the entire picture, and he really gave it to us.”
At night on D-Day, the Japanese continued to probe Marine positions. Fire from bypassed enemy soldiers and enemy attacks screened by a curtain of civilians. The 6th Marines dealt with the main counterattack on the far-left flank. Over two-thousand Japanese moved south from Garapan. And by 2200, they attacked. Led by tanks, they charged, but were met by a wall of fire from 37mm antitank guns, .30-caliber machine guns, and M-1 rifles. It was too much, and they pulled back.
The Japanese retreated, leaving seven hundred men dead and an abandoned tank. The body of the bugler who blew the charge slumped over the open hatch. A bullet had gone straight up his bugle and blew his brains out.
Illumination shells, fired from Navy ships, were vital for the Marine defense that night and on many other nights. Japanese records revealed, “as soon as the night attack units go forward, the enemy points out targets by using large star shells which turned night into day. Thus making the maneuvering of units extremely difficult.”
Weary Marines tried to get some sleep along the irregular line of foxholes. Two things were clear: they had forced themselves onto a perilous beachhead through the teeth of fierce enemy fire, and a ferocious battle lay ahead.
While the Marines focused on survival and the immediate ground in front of them, Senior Command regarded the landing’s initial success as a culmination of months of planning, organization, and training for a strategic strike on the crucial Japanese stronghold. The opportunity for this sprang from earlier victories in the Central Pacific. The Marine conquest of Tarawa in November 1943, followed by the joint Marine-Army capture of Eniwetok and Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands in February 1944, had broken the ring of Japanese defenses, and set the stage for future operations.
These earlier victories allowed the American operational timetable for the Central Pacific to move up by three months. After discussions on various alternatives (an attack on the Japanese base at Truk). The Joint Chiefs decided on their next objective: the Mariana Islands. There were three principal targets: Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. A bold decision because Saipan was over 1,300 miles from the Marshall Islands and 3,200 miles from Hawaii, but only 1,250 miles from Japan. These islands were linchpi
ns in the defensive line, which the Japanese felt they had to hold after the previous losses in the Southwest and Central Pacific.
Saipan also represented a whole new kind of problem for an American assault. Instead of a small flat coral inlay on an atoll, it was a large island target of seventy-two miles. The terrain varied from swamps to flat cane fields to steep cliffs. The Japanese considered it their territory, although it was legally only a mandate provided by the Versailles Treaty’s terms after World War I. The Japanese removed all outsiders and started military construction in 1934.
Attacking a formidable objective like Saipan demanded complex planning and a much greater force than previously needed in the Central Pacific. Admiral Raymond A. Spruance was in overall command of the force ordered to invade the Marianas. Admiral Turner was in command of the Amphibious Task Force. Corps Commander, General Holland Smith was tasked with directing the landing forces on Saipan and then on to the neighboring island of Tinian.
The operational plan for the invasion of Saipan was codenamed, Forager. It called for an assault on the western side of the island, with the 2nd Marine Division on the left and the 4th Marine Division on the right. The Army’s 27th Infantry Division, led by Major General Ralph C. Smith, was held in reserve, ready to be fed into the battle if needed. While both Marine divisions had previously fought as a complete unit, the 27th had experienced only two minor landings (on Makin and Eniwetok islets).
These three divisions trained intensively in Hawaii. General Schmidt’s 4th Marine Division trained on Maui. General Watson’s 2nd Marine Division on Hawaii Island (Big Island). And Army General Ralph Smith’s 27th Infantry Division on Oahu.
These were busy and hard-working months. Replacements arrived to fill gaps left by the recent battle casualties. These men needed to be well-versed in all the complexities of fieldwork. Most of the replacements were boys fresh from boot camp, ignorant of everything except for the barest essentials. Their weeks consisted of long marches, live fire, field combat problems, obstacle courses, judo, street-fighting, calisthenics, and several lectures on errors made during the recent Namur battle. An added emphasis was placed on how to attack fortified positions. They worked with demolition charges of TNT, dynamite, and plastic explosive. They learned to use flamethrowers until they could operate them forward and backward.
In May 1944, the final maneuvers for the practice landings were ready for all three divisions. The operational plan looked efficiently organized on paper. According to a young lieutenant on Maui it looked different: “To us, it was the same old stuff we’d been doing for a year. Filing up from compartments below decks to your assigned boat station. Going over the side. Hurrying down the net to beat the stopwatch and into the heaving LVCP (Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel). Endless hours of circling—wet, hungry, and bored. The K rations tasted like sawdust. The weather only got rougher, and some of the men got so seasick. All of us were soaking wet and so cold.
“When we finally headed back toward the transport and scrambled up over the cargo net, there was a sigh of relief. The next day was the same thing all over again. Only this time, we went ashore. Getting your only pair of socks and shoes wet, wading through the surf, and rushing onto the beach before all the sand mingled inside your shoes. Confusing and conflicting orders flowed down through the chain of command: move on, halt, go here, go there.”
The attack force gathered at Pearl Harbor. Over eight hundred ships set out in the armada. Some for direct troop fire support, some for transport, and some (Fast Carrier Task Force) made advance airstrikes and then were tasked with dealing with any attacks the landing would provoke from the Japanese Navy.
General Holland Smith’s V Amphibious Corps totaled over 71,000 Marines and Army troops. They sailed on May 25, headed for Saipan. The troops got their final briefings at sea. Maps of the island, based on recent aerial and submarine photographs, estimated 15,000 enemy troops (turned out to be over 30,000) along with their detailed attack plans for two Marine divisions.
Planes launched from American fast carriers on June 11. They softened up enemy targets and attacked Japanese land-based air. Two days later, the main enemy fleet headed to the Marianas for a decisive battle. Then on June 14, the old battleships of the US Navy, ready to dish up some payback from the Pearl Harbor disaster, moved in close to Saipan and hammered Japanese defenders with their heavy guns. UDTs (Underwater Demolition Teams) made treacherous swims close to the assault beaches. They checked channels, reefs, and reconnoitered beach defenses. Everything was ready for the landings.
The bloody business of D-Day was only the beginning—a long grueling fight had yet to come.
Assault on Saipan
June 16-17, 1944
For two days, the Marines assaulted along an irregular front. The 2nd Marines moved north toward Garapan. The 8th east into the swamps near Lake Susupe. And the 6th pushed northeast into Mount Tipo Pali.
It was close combat. No exceptions for battalion commanders. Colonel Chambers, commanding the 3/25 Marines of the 4th Division, described his experiences: “We got to a giant bomb crater. The soil had been all turned up, and around it was three Marines protected by the dirt. I called over to one of these Marines and asked what was going on. He said an antiaircraft gun was right in front of them. I crawled to within two feet of the top of that dirt and raised on my hands to see for myself.
“In less than thirty yards, I was looking into the muzzle of an 88mm antitank gun. The Japs had swung the damn thing around and pointed it right up the hill. I was looking clear down its muzzle. I dropped as hard as I could, and then the damn gun went off. The shell tore through the far side of the bomb crater and came through the dirt near where I was. It took the head off the Marine right next to me. The shell landed and detonated another thirty feet beyond me. Later that same day, we had another close call.
“We advanced and uncovered some Jap supply caches. One was an ammo dump. At 1500, the Japs blew the dump where I was standing and caused many concussion casualties—including myself. I still don’t remember a thing about it. Marines told me that when the blast went off, I got thrown right up in the air and turned a complete flip and then landed on my face.”
On the night of the 16th, the Japanese launched a major attack against the 6th Marines. This time with forty-four tanks. This battle was a madhouse of noise tracers and flashing lights. As tanks were hit and set on fire, they silhouetted other tanks that came out of flickering shadows to the front. Marines fired in with grenade launchers, 2.36-inch rocket launchers, 75mm self-propelled guns, artillery, and tanks. When it was over and dawn broke, the shattered hulks of twenty-seven Japanese tanks lay there smoking.
In the Susupe swamp, Marines drove inland to the east toward the objective of Aslito Airfield. In danger of overextending his lines. General Holland Smith pulled the 165th Infantry out of reserve and sent them ashore to reinforce the 4th Marine division. On the same day, General Ralph Smith came ashore to command the additional Army 27th Infantry Division units as they landed.
With the 24th Marines on its left flank and the 165th Infantry on its right, the 25th Marines advanced to the north edge of Aslito Airfield late on June 17. Patrols found the airstrip abandoned, but the 165th (tasked to capture it) waited until the next day.
On the same day, June 17, Admiral Spruance made a critical command decision. The formidable main Japanese fleet approached Saipan. He ordered his carriers to meet the enemy ships. That night, he withdrew his supply ships and transports from their offshore positions to a safe distance from the Japanese threat.
June 18, D +3
When the rifleman woke the following day, they looked out in amazement at an empty ocean. Waves of anxious questions must have raced through their minds. Where the hell are our ships? What about our food and ammunition? Will we have the star shell illumination and naval gunfire support? The rifleman in front-line combat had no way of knowing that 33,000 tons of cargo had already been unloaded before the ships withdrew.
That sam
e morning, the 4th Marine Division’s attack objective was the seizure of the O-3 line. This meant splitting the Japanese forces in two by reaching the east coast of Saipan. But first, the 23rd Marines had to seize a part of the O-2 line in its zone. This would be the division’s line of departure. This meant that the entire division, with its three infantry regiments, the 23rd, 24th, and 25th Marines, jumped off at 1040.
Both the 24th and 25th Marines were able to reach O-3 before dark.
Intense Japanese mortar and machine-gun fire stalled the 23rd Marines. The bombardment came from the east of Lake Susupe on the boundary line separating the two Marine divisions. This made it uncertain which division was responsible for destroying these enemy positions. It was impossible to fire artillery on them for fear of friendly fire. As a result, the 23rd Marines suffered heavy casualties. At days end, a gap still existed between the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions.
In combat, the bizarre can become routine. One of the 23rd Marines’ 75mm half-tracks fired into a Japanese cave. A dense cloud of noxious fumes poured out. A gas alarm sounded. This was serious trouble because the riflemen had long jettisoned the burdensome gas masks. Relief flooded through the men as they established the fumes weren’t poisonous and came from picric acid the Japanese stored in the cave.
In the 2nd Division’s zone to the north, the 8th Marines fought bitterly to control Hill 240. A heavily defended coconut grove required saturation fire from the artillery of the 10th Marines before the riflemen could smash their way in and destroy the enemy. By the night of June 18, the two Marine divisions had suffered over five thousand casualties.