2RHPZ
06-29-2004, 04:27 PM
Operation Forager
The Invasion of Saipan, Tinian and Guam
June 1944 would find the US Navy involved in two of the most ambitious naval
expeditions ever attempted and on opposite sides of the globe. Even as Operation
Overlord returned the Allies to France, Operation Forager was about to deliver
the Marines and Army onto the Marianas Islands.
The Marianas were considered important for several reasons. The first was the
Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest King?s conviction that the Marianas
were the key to the Central Pacific because they dominated the communications
with Japan?s "Inner South Seas Empire?. Capture of the islands would provide the
Pacific Fleet with bases from which they could attack the enemy?s air-sea
communications and strike with equal ease at Palau, the Philippines, Formosa or
China. Navy planners also felt that a bold strike into the vitals of the
Japanese position would force the Combined Fleet to give battle and hazard
itself to destruction at the hands of US Navy.
The Army Air Corps also had an equally important need for bases from which its
new long range bomber, the B-29, could make non-stop strategic strikes on the
Japanese home islands.
The Marianas Islands consist largely of rugged wooded mountains (though this is
somewhat less true of Tinian) and are quite large compared with Tarawa. Guam is
more than 30 miles long, Saipan about 14. They are ringed with coral reefs which
compound the difficulties of amphibious assault by channelizing the approach to
the beaches. The Japanese defenders by mid-1944 numbered some 60,000, about half
of them on Saipan. Situated more than a thousand miles from the nearest US base,
this enemy force represented the most remote and formidable target the Navy/Marine
team had so far attempted. The Navy would find its logistical capabilities
stretched to the limit to support the largest amphibious operation yet mounted
in the Pacific.
US intelligence estimated the Japanese force on Saipan at 19,000. In fact there
were more than 29,000. Three quarters of this number were Army including the 43rd
Infantry Division, 47th Independent Mixed Brigade, (essentially a regimental
combat team with extra artillery), a tank regiment, two engineer regiments, an
antiaircraft regiment and other smaller units. These troops were commanded by
General Y. Saito The Navy made up the rest of the forces. They were commanded by
Admiral Nagumo of Pearl Harbor fame. The Navy was concentrated around Tanapag
Harbor, were well fortified and manned a variety of heavy artillery including a
battery of 8 inch guns. There were also three airfields on Saipan but their
planes had long been destroyed by the 5th Fleet?s fighters.
Admiral Raymond Spruance?s 5th Fleet, some 800 ships, was charged with
transporting 80,000 Marines and nearly 50,000 soldiers to the landing beaches.
They would be escorted by Task Force 58, Admiral Marc Mitscher?s superb force of
12 fast aircraft carriers flying some 800 aircraft and accompanied by 8
battleships and 80 other warships. TF 58 was the weapon with which the US Navy
planned to destroy the Japanese Combined Fleet when and if it ventured forth to
support the Marianas garrisons.
The Expeditionary Troops comprising 3 Marine Divisions, a reinforced Marine
Brigade and 2 Army Infantry Divisions were commanded by Lt General Holland M.
Smith, USMC. This force was divided into the Northern Troops and Landing Force,
for the assault of Saipan and Tinian, commanded directly by General Smith, and
the Southern Troops and Landing Force, for the following operation against Guam,
commanded by Maj. General Roy Geiger, USMC.
Attack on Saipan
After intense air operations on the 11th and 12th of June, followed on the 13th
by a daylong bombardment from the fast battleships of TF 58, the plan called for
the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions to land abreast on about four miles of beaches
on the west side of Saipan south of Garapan, the 2nd on the left and the 4th on
the right. In reserve would be the 27th Infantry Division part of which had
fought at Makin and Eniwetok. To the north above Tanapag units of this floating
reserve would stage a demonstration to draw Japanese attention away from the
real landings. The immediate objective of the landings was to seize a line far
enough inland to preclude Japanese direct fire on the beaches. To do this
rapidly over 700 amphibian tractors, some armored models mounting a 75mm
infantry gun, had the job of pushing the first waves about a mile inland before
debarking. This was a bold plan but it would come up short in execution.
As June 15th dawned bright and clear, a specially trained bombardment squadron
consisting of 4 old but effective battleships, 8 cruisers and 7 destroyers moved
close aboard the Charen Kanoa beaches and commenced firing. The Marines came on
four regiments abreast led by the armored amphibians. Preceding them were 24
rocket firing LCI-gunboats. Overhead, Marine and Navy fliers dropped bombs and
made strafing runs on suspected enemy strongpoints. A thick pall of smoke and
dust obscured the low ridges which rose in the rear of the beaches. Battleship
Tennessee fired her big guns point blank at the fortifications on Agingan Point
that flanked the 4th Division?s landing beaches. Everything that could be done
had been done. Admiral Turner signaled the traditional order to "Land the
landing force? In waves the Marines went in. As the first LVTs clambered over
the coral reef they seemed to explode under a torrent of Japanese shells. The
Japanese had positioned colored flags in the lagoon to mark the range of the
landing forces and now heavy artillery and mortar fire rained down on them with
pin-point accuracy. Out of the 68 armored amphibians which had led the 6th and 8th
Marine Regiments to the beach, 31 were destroyed or disabled. While the leading
waves landed and debarked far short of the plan, the Japanese opened an accurate
long range grazing fire with heavy machine guns sited in the hills around. Far
from being suppressed by the prelanding bombardment, they had survived with most
of their artillery and fortifications intact. The Marines found themselves being
pounded by heavy guns firing from defillade while taking continuous flanking
fire from Agingan and Afetna Points. Losses among officers was very high. 2nd
Battalion, 6th Marines, had four different commanders before nightfall. Over 2,000
casualties were sustained during the landing.
The next two days, June 16 and 17, were spent struggling to expand the beachhead
enough to prevent the Japanese from observing and taking every move of the
Landing Forces under fire. The 2nd Marine Division had tough going as it fought
to gain the slopes of Mounts Tapotchau and Tipo Pale. On the night of the 15th,
the 8th Marines repelled a strong counterattack while the next night, B Company,
6th Marines, were overrun by the first large scale tank attack faced by Marines
during the war. Morning light would reveal the derelict hulks of 31 destroyed
tanks inside B Company?s wire.
Meanwhile developments at sea had taken a fortuitous turn for Admiral Spruance.
The Japanese Fleet was coming out. It was decided to delay the landings on Guam
and to land the Army?s 27th Infantry Division on Saipan immediately. After night
fell on June 17th, Spruance and the 5th Fleet sortied to meet the Japanese in a
battle later known as "The Marianas Turkey Shoot?.
Although the fleet and most of the naval gunfire was absent, conditions were
improving onshore. Gen. Holland Smith had landed and set up his headquarters at
Charan Kanoa. With the arrival of the 27th Division, all of the Northern Landing
Force were ashore. After fierce resistance the Japanese were beginning to feel
the constant pressure the Marines were exerting. On the night of June 18th,
Saito ordered his secret papers and codebooks destroyed and sent a message to
Tokyo: "By becoming the bulwark of the Pacific with 10,000 deaths we hope to
requite the Imperial favor.? That day the Marines pushed across the cane fields
towards Magicienne Bay on Saipan?s east side. On the right of the 4th Marine
Division, the 165th Infantry secured Aslito airfield with no opposition. By the
20th, the island was bisected when the 4th Marine Division reached the sea on
the opposite side of the island.
While the Marine Divisions formed line abreast to drive north to the end of the
island, Spruance?s 5th Fleet was scoring a huge victory with the destruction of
Japanese naval aviation in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Spruance comes in
for criticism from some quarters for not chasing Ozawa?s battered force as they
withdrew but the Marines were glad to see the return of the fleet and its big
guns.
The terrain of the north end of Saipan was described by one officer as "a
nightmare of sheer cliffs and precipitous hills,". The fighting was
characterized by the use of the flame-thrower, satchel charge, grenade and
bulldozer. Suicidal charges by the trapped Japanese led to many episodes of hand-to-hand
combat.
While the Japanese refused the opportunity to surrender and suffered nearly
total casualties in every encounter with the Marines, Corporal John Basilone, a
Japanese speaking Marine from Los Angeles was successful in talking nearly a 1,000
Japanese into surrendering and thus saving their lives. For this Basilone was
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, his country's highest military award.
On June 22nd, the 27th Infantry Division was inserted into the center of the
line between the two Marine divisions. Unfortunately the Army regiments were
unable to maintain pace with the battle-hardened Marines on their flanks and
soon the line took on a concave U shape. By the end of the day General Holland
Smith could no longer hide his concern over the poor showing of the 27th
Infantry Division. Major General Sanderford Jarman, USA, senior army officer on
Saipan was asked by General Smith to go to the commander of the 27th, General
Ralph Smith, USA, and impress upon him the need for haste. Jarman found Smith
despondent over his division?s lack of fight and quoted him as saying if the
division did not do better on the morrow that he (General Smith) should be
relieved. Unfortunately this came to pass the next afternoon when Holland Smith
exercised his prerogative and replaced him with the aforesaid General Jarman.
This episode would create much bitter inter-service rivalry between the Marines
and the Army that would have repercussions later on in the war. While the 27th
Division tried to work out its command problems, the 2nd Marine Division in a
bold attack captured Mount Tapochau. This was the beginning of the end for the
Japanese. On July 1st the battle for Saipan entered its final stage. The 2nd
Division over three days of sustained fighting captured the shattered ruins of
Garapan and Tanapag Harbor.
As the remaining defenders were compressed into an ever smaller area, General
Holland Smith became concerned about the possibility of a final banzai charge
and on July 2nd he paid a visit to the headquarters of the 27th Infantry
Division to warn them to expect such an attack that night. At 0445 the next
morning 2,500 ragged Japanese soldiers, short of weapons, ammunition and food
surged down upon the 105th Infantry Regiment. Despite the warnings a gap of 500
yards separated two of the Regiment?s battalions and it was here that the weight
of the attack fell. In a fight only too reminiscent of Custer?s Last Stand, a
battalion commander was killed in his command post manning a .30 cal. machine-gun
to the last. During this ordeal the regiment?s third battalion posted nearby,
stayed put and took no part in the fight. In the rear of the 105th Infantry the
attack swept into the 3rd Battalion, 10th Marines. Here the marine gunners cut
the fuzes down to muzzle burst and fired their 105s point blank into the enraged
enemy. The attack finally ended in a hand-to-hand fight among the fox holes of
the 10th Marines. The artillery battalion suffered the loss of 136 men including
the commander, killed at his guns. The two army battalions suffered a loss of
668 casualties and were evacuated the next day.
Before the final banzai attack, General Saito, too ill to take part, gathered
his staff for a farewell feast of sake and canned crab meat which ended with the
General?s ritual suicide. A day later in a cave not far from the scene of Saito?s
death, Admiral Nagumo, who had launched the attack on Pearl Harbor, took his
life.
Although the island was declared secure on July 9th, some Japanese would hold
out like shadows for months to come. The final mop up operations would see some
of the most pathetic scenes of the Pacific War as Japanese civilians choose to
leap to their deaths from the crags of Marpi Point rather than surrender to the
Marines who were powerless to stop them.
Aftermath
Saipan cost the United States 16,525 casualties including 3,426 killed in action
but it provided the first B-29 base in the Pacific. Japanese losses were over 29,000.
A Japanese Admiral said, "Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan. I feel it
was a decisive battle." General Holland Smith considered Saipan the decisive
battle of the Pacific offensives.
The Invasion of Saipan, Tinian and Guam
June 1944 would find the US Navy involved in two of the most ambitious naval
expeditions ever attempted and on opposite sides of the globe. Even as Operation
Overlord returned the Allies to France, Operation Forager was about to deliver
the Marines and Army onto the Marianas Islands.
The Marianas were considered important for several reasons. The first was the
Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest King?s conviction that the Marianas
were the key to the Central Pacific because they dominated the communications
with Japan?s "Inner South Seas Empire?. Capture of the islands would provide the
Pacific Fleet with bases from which they could attack the enemy?s air-sea
communications and strike with equal ease at Palau, the Philippines, Formosa or
China. Navy planners also felt that a bold strike into the vitals of the
Japanese position would force the Combined Fleet to give battle and hazard
itself to destruction at the hands of US Navy.
The Army Air Corps also had an equally important need for bases from which its
new long range bomber, the B-29, could make non-stop strategic strikes on the
Japanese home islands.
The Marianas Islands consist largely of rugged wooded mountains (though this is
somewhat less true of Tinian) and are quite large compared with Tarawa. Guam is
more than 30 miles long, Saipan about 14. They are ringed with coral reefs which
compound the difficulties of amphibious assault by channelizing the approach to
the beaches. The Japanese defenders by mid-1944 numbered some 60,000, about half
of them on Saipan. Situated more than a thousand miles from the nearest US base,
this enemy force represented the most remote and formidable target the Navy/Marine
team had so far attempted. The Navy would find its logistical capabilities
stretched to the limit to support the largest amphibious operation yet mounted
in the Pacific.
US intelligence estimated the Japanese force on Saipan at 19,000. In fact there
were more than 29,000. Three quarters of this number were Army including the 43rd
Infantry Division, 47th Independent Mixed Brigade, (essentially a regimental
combat team with extra artillery), a tank regiment, two engineer regiments, an
antiaircraft regiment and other smaller units. These troops were commanded by
General Y. Saito The Navy made up the rest of the forces. They were commanded by
Admiral Nagumo of Pearl Harbor fame. The Navy was concentrated around Tanapag
Harbor, were well fortified and manned a variety of heavy artillery including a
battery of 8 inch guns. There were also three airfields on Saipan but their
planes had long been destroyed by the 5th Fleet?s fighters.
Admiral Raymond Spruance?s 5th Fleet, some 800 ships, was charged with
transporting 80,000 Marines and nearly 50,000 soldiers to the landing beaches.
They would be escorted by Task Force 58, Admiral Marc Mitscher?s superb force of
12 fast aircraft carriers flying some 800 aircraft and accompanied by 8
battleships and 80 other warships. TF 58 was the weapon with which the US Navy
planned to destroy the Japanese Combined Fleet when and if it ventured forth to
support the Marianas garrisons.
The Expeditionary Troops comprising 3 Marine Divisions, a reinforced Marine
Brigade and 2 Army Infantry Divisions were commanded by Lt General Holland M.
Smith, USMC. This force was divided into the Northern Troops and Landing Force,
for the assault of Saipan and Tinian, commanded directly by General Smith, and
the Southern Troops and Landing Force, for the following operation against Guam,
commanded by Maj. General Roy Geiger, USMC.
Attack on Saipan
After intense air operations on the 11th and 12th of June, followed on the 13th
by a daylong bombardment from the fast battleships of TF 58, the plan called for
the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions to land abreast on about four miles of beaches
on the west side of Saipan south of Garapan, the 2nd on the left and the 4th on
the right. In reserve would be the 27th Infantry Division part of which had
fought at Makin and Eniwetok. To the north above Tanapag units of this floating
reserve would stage a demonstration to draw Japanese attention away from the
real landings. The immediate objective of the landings was to seize a line far
enough inland to preclude Japanese direct fire on the beaches. To do this
rapidly over 700 amphibian tractors, some armored models mounting a 75mm
infantry gun, had the job of pushing the first waves about a mile inland before
debarking. This was a bold plan but it would come up short in execution.
As June 15th dawned bright and clear, a specially trained bombardment squadron
consisting of 4 old but effective battleships, 8 cruisers and 7 destroyers moved
close aboard the Charen Kanoa beaches and commenced firing. The Marines came on
four regiments abreast led by the armored amphibians. Preceding them were 24
rocket firing LCI-gunboats. Overhead, Marine and Navy fliers dropped bombs and
made strafing runs on suspected enemy strongpoints. A thick pall of smoke and
dust obscured the low ridges which rose in the rear of the beaches. Battleship
Tennessee fired her big guns point blank at the fortifications on Agingan Point
that flanked the 4th Division?s landing beaches. Everything that could be done
had been done. Admiral Turner signaled the traditional order to "Land the
landing force? In waves the Marines went in. As the first LVTs clambered over
the coral reef they seemed to explode under a torrent of Japanese shells. The
Japanese had positioned colored flags in the lagoon to mark the range of the
landing forces and now heavy artillery and mortar fire rained down on them with
pin-point accuracy. Out of the 68 armored amphibians which had led the 6th and 8th
Marine Regiments to the beach, 31 were destroyed or disabled. While the leading
waves landed and debarked far short of the plan, the Japanese opened an accurate
long range grazing fire with heavy machine guns sited in the hills around. Far
from being suppressed by the prelanding bombardment, they had survived with most
of their artillery and fortifications intact. The Marines found themselves being
pounded by heavy guns firing from defillade while taking continuous flanking
fire from Agingan and Afetna Points. Losses among officers was very high. 2nd
Battalion, 6th Marines, had four different commanders before nightfall. Over 2,000
casualties were sustained during the landing.
The next two days, June 16 and 17, were spent struggling to expand the beachhead
enough to prevent the Japanese from observing and taking every move of the
Landing Forces under fire. The 2nd Marine Division had tough going as it fought
to gain the slopes of Mounts Tapotchau and Tipo Pale. On the night of the 15th,
the 8th Marines repelled a strong counterattack while the next night, B Company,
6th Marines, were overrun by the first large scale tank attack faced by Marines
during the war. Morning light would reveal the derelict hulks of 31 destroyed
tanks inside B Company?s wire.
Meanwhile developments at sea had taken a fortuitous turn for Admiral Spruance.
The Japanese Fleet was coming out. It was decided to delay the landings on Guam
and to land the Army?s 27th Infantry Division on Saipan immediately. After night
fell on June 17th, Spruance and the 5th Fleet sortied to meet the Japanese in a
battle later known as "The Marianas Turkey Shoot?.
Although the fleet and most of the naval gunfire was absent, conditions were
improving onshore. Gen. Holland Smith had landed and set up his headquarters at
Charan Kanoa. With the arrival of the 27th Division, all of the Northern Landing
Force were ashore. After fierce resistance the Japanese were beginning to feel
the constant pressure the Marines were exerting. On the night of June 18th,
Saito ordered his secret papers and codebooks destroyed and sent a message to
Tokyo: "By becoming the bulwark of the Pacific with 10,000 deaths we hope to
requite the Imperial favor.? That day the Marines pushed across the cane fields
towards Magicienne Bay on Saipan?s east side. On the right of the 4th Marine
Division, the 165th Infantry secured Aslito airfield with no opposition. By the
20th, the island was bisected when the 4th Marine Division reached the sea on
the opposite side of the island.
While the Marine Divisions formed line abreast to drive north to the end of the
island, Spruance?s 5th Fleet was scoring a huge victory with the destruction of
Japanese naval aviation in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Spruance comes in
for criticism from some quarters for not chasing Ozawa?s battered force as they
withdrew but the Marines were glad to see the return of the fleet and its big
guns.
The terrain of the north end of Saipan was described by one officer as "a
nightmare of sheer cliffs and precipitous hills,". The fighting was
characterized by the use of the flame-thrower, satchel charge, grenade and
bulldozer. Suicidal charges by the trapped Japanese led to many episodes of hand-to-hand
combat.
While the Japanese refused the opportunity to surrender and suffered nearly
total casualties in every encounter with the Marines, Corporal John Basilone, a
Japanese speaking Marine from Los Angeles was successful in talking nearly a 1,000
Japanese into surrendering and thus saving their lives. For this Basilone was
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, his country's highest military award.
On June 22nd, the 27th Infantry Division was inserted into the center of the
line between the two Marine divisions. Unfortunately the Army regiments were
unable to maintain pace with the battle-hardened Marines on their flanks and
soon the line took on a concave U shape. By the end of the day General Holland
Smith could no longer hide his concern over the poor showing of the 27th
Infantry Division. Major General Sanderford Jarman, USA, senior army officer on
Saipan was asked by General Smith to go to the commander of the 27th, General
Ralph Smith, USA, and impress upon him the need for haste. Jarman found Smith
despondent over his division?s lack of fight and quoted him as saying if the
division did not do better on the morrow that he (General Smith) should be
relieved. Unfortunately this came to pass the next afternoon when Holland Smith
exercised his prerogative and replaced him with the aforesaid General Jarman.
This episode would create much bitter inter-service rivalry between the Marines
and the Army that would have repercussions later on in the war. While the 27th
Division tried to work out its command problems, the 2nd Marine Division in a
bold attack captured Mount Tapochau. This was the beginning of the end for the
Japanese. On July 1st the battle for Saipan entered its final stage. The 2nd
Division over three days of sustained fighting captured the shattered ruins of
Garapan and Tanapag Harbor.
As the remaining defenders were compressed into an ever smaller area, General
Holland Smith became concerned about the possibility of a final banzai charge
and on July 2nd he paid a visit to the headquarters of the 27th Infantry
Division to warn them to expect such an attack that night. At 0445 the next
morning 2,500 ragged Japanese soldiers, short of weapons, ammunition and food
surged down upon the 105th Infantry Regiment. Despite the warnings a gap of 500
yards separated two of the Regiment?s battalions and it was here that the weight
of the attack fell. In a fight only too reminiscent of Custer?s Last Stand, a
battalion commander was killed in his command post manning a .30 cal. machine-gun
to the last. During this ordeal the regiment?s third battalion posted nearby,
stayed put and took no part in the fight. In the rear of the 105th Infantry the
attack swept into the 3rd Battalion, 10th Marines. Here the marine gunners cut
the fuzes down to muzzle burst and fired their 105s point blank into the enraged
enemy. The attack finally ended in a hand-to-hand fight among the fox holes of
the 10th Marines. The artillery battalion suffered the loss of 136 men including
the commander, killed at his guns. The two army battalions suffered a loss of
668 casualties and were evacuated the next day.
Before the final banzai attack, General Saito, too ill to take part, gathered
his staff for a farewell feast of sake and canned crab meat which ended with the
General?s ritual suicide. A day later in a cave not far from the scene of Saito?s
death, Admiral Nagumo, who had launched the attack on Pearl Harbor, took his
life.
Although the island was declared secure on July 9th, some Japanese would hold
out like shadows for months to come. The final mop up operations would see some
of the most pathetic scenes of the Pacific War as Japanese civilians choose to
leap to their deaths from the crags of Marpi Point rather than surrender to the
Marines who were powerless to stop them.
Aftermath
Saipan cost the United States 16,525 casualties including 3,426 killed in action
but it provided the first B-29 base in the Pacific. Japanese losses were over 29,000.
A Japanese Admiral said, "Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan. I feel it
was a decisive battle." General Holland Smith considered Saipan the decisive
battle of the Pacific offensives.