by Daniel Wrinn
Reports of suicides and ritual murders were common. This was taken from a report on August 3: “Several freak accidents occurred during the day. Japanese children were thrown by their parents over a cliff into the ocean. Japanese military grouped civilians in numbers of twenty and attached explosive charges to them, blowing them to bits. Both military and civilians lined up on the cliffs and hurled themselves into the ocean. Japanese soldiers pushed civilians over the cliff.”
Some efforts to prevent these types of incidents were successful. Marines used amplifiers on land and offshore, promising good treatment to civilians and soldiers who would peacefully surrender. Many civilians, clad in colorful Japanese silk, responded to Marine promises, but it was plain from the expression on their faces that they expected the worst.
Aftermath of Tinian
By August 14, the entire 4th Division had embarked to base camp on Maui. On Tinian, they suffered over 1,100 casualties, with 210 killed. Their next assignment would be Iwo Jima.
The 2nd Division remained in the Mariana Islands. They set up base camp on Saipan. The 8th Marines remained on Tinian for mopping up until October 25, until the 2nd and 3rd Battalions were moved to Saipan. This left an unhappy 1st Battalion behind until getting relieved at the end of the year.
The overall cost for the 2nd Division on Tinian was 760 casualties, including 105 killed. This number did not include the casualties suffered after the island was “secured” on August 1.
The Japanese military losses based on the bodies counted and buried were over 5,000. Thousands more were assumed sealed up in underground fortifications and caves. The number of prisoners taken was 437.
The Army Air Corps now had the B-29 bases they needed for bombing Japan. With the capture of the Marianas, they were located only 1,200 nautical miles from the home islands of Japan. An ideal distance for B-29 bombers and their range of nearly 3,000 miles. Tinian became the home for two wings of the Twentieth Air Force. After the conquest of Tinian, B-29s hammered the Japanese mainland in less than three months. Over the next year, B-29s flew nearly 30,000 missions out of the Marianas. They dropped over 150,000 tons of explosives which killed (by Japanese estimates) 250,000 people and left over nine million homeless with 2,200,000 homes demolished.
Tinian’s place in history was cemented by the flight of the Enola Gay dropping a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. A few days later, another nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The following day, the Empire of Japan surrendered.
When news of the official surrender reached the division on Saipan, one Marine recalled that he looked at Tinian’s clean and rocky coast of the coral boulders where they’d gone ashore. He thought of the forbidding coast of Japan—the coast that could have awaited them in the fall. He said, “Tinian was a pretty good investment, I guess.”
Japanese Defense Force
The Japanese fortified Tinian and other islands in the Mariana’s chain in direct violation of the League of Nation’s Mandate. By 1944 the Tinian garrison numbered over 9,000 Navy and Army personnel and brought the island’s total population to over 25,000.
The principal fighting force was the 50th Infantry Regiment, a detachment from the 29th Division on Guam. Stationed in Manchuria from 1941 until transferred to Tinian in March 1944. The troops were battle-hardened veterans of several Manchurian campaigns. Colonel Keishi Ogata commanded the regiment consisting of three 875-man infantry battalions, a 75mm mountain artillery battalion with twelve guns, communication, medical, and engineer companies. This also included a company of twelve light tanks, headquarters support personnel, and an anti-tank platoon. Ogata also had a battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment with a troop strength of 900 men. In total, more than 5,000 Japanese Army troops were assigned to the island’s defense.
The Navy unit was the 56th Naval Guard Force. A 1,400-man coastal defense unit supplemented by four construction battalions with a combined strength of 2,000 men. Other naval units totaling 1,000 men included a detachment of the 5th Base Force and ground elements of seven aviation squadrons.
The Japanese Navy personnel totaled over 4,200 men and were under the immediate command of Captain Oichi Oya. Both Ogata and Oya were outranked by Vice Admiral Kakuji Kakuda, in command of the 1st Air Fleet headquartered on Tinian. But as the invasion got closer, Kakuda had no air fleet to command. Of the estimated 111 planes based on Tinian’s airfields, US airstrikes had destroyed seventy on the ground in early June. By July 24, at the time of the Tinian landing, none of Kakuda’s planes were operational.
Kakuda was by Japanese physical standards a hulking figure. He was over six feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds. He had an unquenchable thirst for liquor and lacked the fortitude to face the odds arrayed against him at Tinian. He was known as a drunk and an extremely unpleasant one, from many accounts.
Nine days before the invasion on July 15, Kakuda and his headquarters group attempted to escape in rubber boats to Aguijan Island and rendezvous with a Japanese submarine. They failed. They tried for five nights in a row with the same results before abandoning the effort on July 21. Kakuda fled with his staff officers to a cave on Tinian’s east coast to await their fate.
A Japanese prisoner who later described Kakuda’s escape attempt assumed he had committed suicide after the American landing—but that was never verified. Toward the end of the battle for Tinian, one of Kakuda’s orderlies led an American patrol to his cave. This patrol was fired on, and two Marines were wounded. Another passing group of Marine pioneers sealed the cave with demolition charges, but it is still unknown whether Kakuda was inside.
Admiral Kakuda had no part in directing any Japanese resistance on Tinian. Colonel Ogata took command of defending the island. He assumed command of both Navy and Army forces. Japanese diaries, later found, showed the friction between the two men. In the 50th Regiment’s artillery battalion, a Japanese soldier wrote: “March 9: The Navy stays in dark buildings and has liberty every night with liquor to drink and fights. On the other hand, we stay in the rain and never get out on any pass—what a difference in discipline.
“June 12: Our anti-aircraft guns manned by the Navy spread black smoke where the enemy planes are not. Not one hit out of over a thousand shots. Our Naval Air Group has taken to its heels.
“June 15: The Naval aviators are thieves. When they ran off to the mountains, they stole Army provisions.”
The island’s geography dictated Tinian’s defenses. It was encircled by coral cliffs that rose from the coastline as part of a limestone plateau that underlined the island. The cliffs were from five to ninety-five feet. Breaks in the cliff were rare and where they did happen were narrow. This left truly little beach space for any invasion force. All along the coastline of Tinian, only four beaches were worthy of the name.
Sunharon Harbor in front of Tinian Town was the most suitable target for an amphibious assault. It had several wide sandy strips. The harbor was mediocre but provided a fair-weather anchorage for ships to load and unload cargo at the two Tinian Town piers.
Colonel Ogata assumed this beach would be the first choice for the Americans. Of the over one-hundred guns in fixed positions on the island—6-inch British naval rifles and 7.7mm heavy machine guns—a third were assigned to the defense of Tinian Town, its beaches, and the airfield at Gurguan Point two miles northwest. Within a two-mile radius of the town were 1,400 men of the 56th Naval Guard Force and the 135th Infantry Regiment designated as the mobile counterattack force. Their area of responsibility extended out to Lalo Point on the southernmost part of the island and east to Masalog Point. This made up the “southern sector” of Ogata’s defense plan.
The remainder of the island was divided into northeastern and northwestern sectors. The northeast sector had the Ushi Point airfields and a potential landing beach 125 yards wide south of Asiga Point on the island's east coast. Between 500 and 900 Navy personnel were stationed close to the Ushi Airfields. A battalion from the 50th Infantry Regiment and an engineer group were stationed
inland of Asagi Point. In the northwestern sector, there were two narrow strips of beach less than a thousand yards apart. One of them was sixty yards wide and the other twice as long. They were popular with Japanese civilians because the water was swimmable, and the sand was white. Known as the White Beaches—and to the Japanese’s great surprise—as the American invasion route.
This sector was defended modestly by a single infantry company and one anti-tank squad, 450 yards northeast of the White Beaches. The gun crews were situated in placements containing a 47mm anti-tank gun, a 37mm anti-tank gun, and two 7.7mm machine guns.
Colonel Ogata established his command post in a cave on Mount Lasso in the center of the northern region, a little over two miles from the beaches on either side of the island. On June 25, he issued orders that said: “the enemy in Saipan can be expected to be planning a landing on Tinian. The area of that landing is estimated to be either Asiga Harbor [on the northeast coast] or Tinian Harbor.” Three days later he followed up with a defense forces battle plan which outlined his two contingencies.
(1) In the event the enemy lands at Asiga Bay.
(2) In the event the enemy lands at Tinian Harbor (Sunharon Harbor).
Colonel Ogata issued a plan for the “Guidance of Battle” on July 7. He ordered his men to be prepared for the landings at Asiga Bay and Tinian Town and for a counterattack if the Americans invaded across the White Beaches.
According to his battle plan, in each of the three sectors, commanders were to destroy the enemy at the beach but also be prepared to shift two-thirds of their forces elsewhere. His reserve force was to maintain fortified positions and counterattack points while maintaining anti-aircraft observation and fire in the area. The mobile counterattack force had to rapidly advance to the landings depending on the attack and situation. In the event of a successful landing, his forces would “counterattack to the water and destroy the enemy on beaches with one blow, especially where time prevents quick movement of forces within the island.”
If things went badly, they would fall back onto prepared positions in the southern part of the islands and defend each position to the death.
Many of these orders were contradictory and others were impossible to execute. But despite the odds against them—without air or sea support and confronted by three heavily armed divisions only three miles away on Saipan—the Japanese fighting spirit had not been broken by over forty days of heavy bombardment.
In the 50th Infantry Regiment, a Japanese soldier wrote in his diary on June 30: “We spent over twenty days under unceasing enemy bombardment and air raids but have suffered only minor losses. Everyone from the commanding officer to the lowest private is full of fighting spirit. How exalted are the gallant figures of the Force Commander, the Battalion Commander, and their subordinates who have endured this violent artillery and air bombardment.”
White Beach Selection
The selection of northwestern beaches was considered the key to success in the Tinian operation. While credit for this decision has been debated, General Schmidt later wrote on the issue: “many high-ranking officers had asked who originated the plan. While the 4th Division was under my command and before the Mariana’s campaign, my planning officer Colonel Evans Carlson made a plan, and probably this plan was turned into V Amphibious Corps.”
Colonel Gooderham McCormick, the division’s intelligence officer who later became the mayor of Philadelphia, agreed with this assessment. He wrote, “Evans Carlson was the man who planned that landing. He told me all about that Tinian plan before he was wounded on June 22 on Saipan.”
General Graves Erskine, the V Amphibious Corps chief of staff, minimized Carlson’s role. In an interview, he said, “If there were plans, and I presume there were, none of them were available to me and my staff.”
Historian Ronald Spector wrote in his Pacific War history book that General Holland Smith had forced the issue. Rear Admiral Hill and General Smith proposed using the two White Beaches for the assault, but Admiral Turner vetoed the proposal and told Rear Admiral Hill to plan for a landing near Tinian Town. While Hill reluctantly complied, he ordered part of his staff to continue working on the White Beaches plan. Smith and Hill tried one more time to change Admiral Turner’s mind, but he still stubbornly refused to reconsider.
In an exchange characteristic of General Holland Smith and Admiral Turner, Turner said, “you are not going to land on the white beaches. I will not let you land there.”
“Oh yes, you will,” General Smith said. “You will let me land any goddamn place I tell you to.”
Admiral Turner was now upset and adamant. “I’m telling you that it cannot be done. It is absolutely impossible.”
General Smith said, “How do you know it’s impossible? Are you just so goddamn scared that some of your boats will get hurt?”
This exchange did not change Admiral Turner’s mind. So, Hill took the matter to Turner’s superior, Admiral Spruance. Spruance liked the White Beaches idea but did not want to overrule Turner—an amphibious warfare expert. After a conference with Turner and his subordinate commanders was arranged on board the flagship. All present spoke in favor of a White Beaches assault. Spruance later turned to Turner, where Turner calmly announced he now also favored the White Beaches.
Admiral Turner later wrote of the incident, “before the reconnaissance of July 11th was available, I had already decided to accept the White Beaches unless the reconnaissance reports were unfavorable.”
To quote John F. Kennedy: “Victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”
General Clifton B. Cates
Clifton Cates was commissioned in 1917. The native Tennessean was sent off to France with the 6th Marines in World War I. He had an outstanding service record in five major engagements of the Great War. He returned to the United States as a well-decorated young officer after his tour in the occupation of Germany.
One of his first early assignments after the war was as an aid to Major General Commandant George Barnett. During his over thirty-seven years as a Marine, Cates was one of the few officers who had commanded a platoon, company, battalion, regiment, and division in combat. At the start of the Korean War, he was the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
His assignments during the interwar years consisted of a combination of staff assignments, and a tour as battalion commander of the 4th Marines at the time in Shanghai. He took command of the 1st Marines in May 1942.
General Cates commanded the 1st Marines in the Guadalcanal landings. After he returned to the US, he was promoted to brigadier general. He then returned to the Pacific War in mid-1944 and took command of the 4th Marine Division on July 12th in time for the Tinian operation, succeeding General Schmidt who had assumed command of the entire V Amphibious Corps. He also led the Iwo Jima assault and was decorated at the end of the fighting with his second Distinguished Service Medal.
Part of his citation that accompanied the medal read: “For repeatedly disregarding his own personal safety. Major General Cates traversed his own front lines daily to rally tired and depleted units. By showing his undaunted valor, tenacious perseverance, and staunch leadership in the face of overwhelming odds, he constantly inspired his stouthearted Marines to heroic efforts during the critical phase of the campaign.”
On January 1, 1948, General Cates took over command of the Marine Corps until December 31, 1951, when he reverted to the three stars of a lieutenant general and began a second tour as Commandant of the Marine Corps school at Quantico, Virginia.
General Cates retired from the Marine Corps on June 30, 1954. He died on June 4, 1970, aged 76.
Napalm: A New Weapon
In 1944 Army Air Corps personnel at Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, created a new weapon. Known as a “firebomb” and first strategically used near the island of Pohnpei to the southeast of Tinian in February 1944.
The ingredients comprised gasoline, diesel oil, and the metallic salt used in soap manufacturing. Mixed with petrole
um fuels, the salt created an incendiary jelly that clung to any surface and burned into a scorching flame. This concoction would be forever known as “napalm.” It could be dropped in belly or wing tanks attached to an aircraft's underside and was fired by an igniter on contact with the ground.
Five days before the Tinian landing on July 19, Navy Lieutenant Commander Louis Wang arrived on Saipan carrying a small supply of napalm powder and a film made at Eglin showing this new bomb's potency. It showed P-47 Thunderbolts making the low-level drops after diving from 2,000 feet.
This film so impressed General Schmidt and Rear Admiral Hill that Hill instantly radioed Admiral Nimitz in Hawaii and requested 8,500 pounds of the powder. Hill also ordered trial raids on Tinian by the P-47 pilots of the Army’s 318th Air Group—using the powder and detonators they had on hand.
These trials were not remarkable. Their purpose was to burn off wooded areas that were previously resistant to thermite and white phosphorus. The napalm scorched the trees but left the foliage only partially burned. The problem was the wood itself—Ironwood—was virtually indestructible.
Another problem was the napalm mixture. Wang had brought the wrong formula. They tried to use Japanese aviation gasoline but that gave it too much fire effect. Then they used Japanese motor gas and oil with the napalm powder, and that was when it became successful.
Many P-47 pilots were uncomfortable with the napalm missions. They dropped their tanks at low altitudes—sometimes less than forty-five feet—and were vulnerable to ground fire. They were also unimpressed with the effectiveness of these “firebombs” and much of their incendiary effect was wasted in an excessive upward flash. At that time, napalm had a noticeably short burning time—less than two minutes.