BREACHING THE MARIANAS: The Battle for Saipan
by Captain John C. Chapin U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret)
D+16D+19, 14 July
Now Holland Smith turned his attention to operation
plans to drive through the northern third of Saipan and bring the
campaign to a successful, albeit a bloody, conclusion. His next
objective line ran from Garapan up the west coast to Tanapag and then
eastward across the island. Past Tanapag, near Flores Point, the 2d
Marine Division would be pinched out and become the corps reserve. That
would leave the 27th Infantry Division and the 4th Marine Division to
assault General Saito's final defenses.
The easiest assignment during this period fell to the
4th Marine Division on the east coast. It advanced 3,500 yards against
light opposition, veering to its left, ending on 4 July with its left
flank some 2,000 yards north of Tanapag, right on the west coast.
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(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
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As usual, what looked like "light opposition" to
General Schmidt in his divisional CP looked very different to that
tired, tense lieutenant who described a painfully typical rifle platoon
situation on D+16:
I took the rest of my men and we proceededvery
cautiouslyto comb the area. It was a terrible place: the rocks and
creepers were so interwoven that they formed an almost impenetrable
barrier; visibility was limited to a few feet. After what had happened
to [my wounded sergeant], the atmosphere of the place was very tense. We
located some rock crevices we thought the Japs might be in, and I tried
calling to them in our Japanese combat phrases to come out and
surrender. This proved fruitless, and it let the Japs know exactly where
we were, while we had no idea of their location. Then I tried to
maneuver our flamethrower man into a position where he could give the
crevice a blast without becoming a sitting-duck target himself. Because
of the configuration of the ground, this proved impossible.
Right about now, there was a shot off to our left. We
started over to investigate and all hell broke loose! A Jap automatic
weapon opened up right beside us. We all hit the deck automatically. No
one was hit (for a change), but we couldn't spot the exact location of
the weapon (as usual). I called to the man who'd been over on the left
flank. No answer. What had happened to him?
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The only way to deal with some Japanese in their
well-protected defenses was to blast them with a flame-thrower.
Department of
Defense Photo (USMC) 84885
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At this point more enemy fire spattered around the
small group of Marines. The source seemed to be right on top of them, so
the lieutenant told two of his men to throw some grenades over into the
area he thought the fire was coming fromabout 20 feet away. Under
cover of that, the Marines worked a rifleman forward a couple of yards
to try to get a bead on the Japanese, but he was unable to spot them and
the enemy fire seemed to grow heavier.
Now the lieutenant began to get very worried:
Here we werecompletely isolated from the rest
of the companyonly half a dozen of us leftour flank man had
disappeared and now we were getting heavy fire from an uncertain number
of Japs who were right in our middle and whom we couldn't locate! Some
of the men were getting a little jittery I could see, so I tried to
appear as calm and cool as I could (although I didn't feel that way
inside!). I decided to move back to the other end of the hilltop and
report to [our company commander] on the phone. If I could get his OK, I
would then contact [another one of our platoons] for reinforcements, and
we could move back into this area and clean out the Jap pocket.
Pressing hard against the Japanese defenses
constantly resulted in these kinds of face-to face encounters. Three
days later (D+19), Lieutenant Colonel Chambers observed a memorable act
of bravery:
Three of our tanks came along the road. . . . They
made the turn to the south and then took the wrong turn, which took them
off the high ground and into a cave area where there were literally
hundreds of Japs, who swarmed all over the tanks. We were watching and
heard on the radio that (the lieutenant) who commanded the tanks was
hollering for help, and I don't blame him. They had formed a triangle
and covered each other with the co-axial guns as best as they could.
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He
may have started out sitting on a dud 16-inch Navy shell, enjoying a
smoke while emptying sand from his "boon dockers," but by the end of the
campaign, three weeks later, he had had too little sleep, too many fire
fights, and too many buddies dead. Department of Defense Photo (USMC)
85221
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The commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 25th
Marines, Lieutenant Colonel Hollis U. ("Musty") Mustain was nearest the
crisis. Chambers went on:
Mustain's executive officer was a regular major by
the name of Fenton Mee. Musty and I were together, and when radio
operators told us what was going on, Musty turned to Mee and said, "Get
some people there and get those tanks out."
Mee turned around to his battalion CP, who were all
staff people. He just pointed and said, "Let's get going." He turned and
took off. I can still see his facehe figured he was going to get
killed. They got there and the Japs pulled out. This let the tanks get
out, and they were saved. It was one of the bravest things I ever saw
people do.
Chambers also noted that, by D+19, out of 28 officers
and 690 enlisted men in his rifle companies at the start of the
campaign, he now had only 6 officers and 315 men left in those
companies. Counting his headquarters company, he had just 468 men
remaining of the battalion's original total strength of 1,050, so one
rifle company simply had to be disbanded. The grim toll was repeated in
another battalion which had had 22 out of 29 officers and 490 enlisted
men either killed or wounded in action.
Next to the 4th Marine Division was the 27th Infantry
Division in the center of the line of attack. It, too, had a far easier
time than in the grinding experiences it had just come through. Its
advance also veered left, and was "against negligible resistance" with
"the enemy in full flight." Thus it reached the west coast, pinching off
the 2d Marine Division and allowing it to go into reserve.
There was a different story in the 2d Marine Division
zone of action at the beginning of this period. On 2 July Flametree Hill
was seized and the 2d Marines stormed into Garapan, the second largest
city in the Mariana Islands. What the regiment found was a shambles; the
town had been completely leveled by naval gunfire and Marine
artillery.
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"Patrol, Saipan" By Richard Gilney. Marine Corps Art
Collection
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The official Marine history pictures the scene:
Twisted metal roof tops now littered the area,
shielding Japanese snipers. A number of deftly hidden pillboxes were
scattered among the ruins. Assault engineers, covered by riflemen,
slipped behind such obstacles to set explosives while flamethrowers
seared the front. Assisted by the engineers, and supported by tanks and
75mm self-propelled guns of the regimental weapons company, the 2d
Marines beat down the scattered resistance before nightfall. On the
beaches, suppressing fire from the LVT(A)s of the 2d Armored Amphibian
Battalion silenced the Japanese weapons located near the water.
Moving past the town, the 2d Marine Division drove
towards Flores Point, halfway to Tanapag. Along the way, with filthy
uniforms, stiff with sweat and dirt after over two weeks of fierce
fighting, the Marines joyfully dipped their heads and hands into the
cool ocean waters.
With the other two divisions already having veered
their attack to the left and reached the northwest coast, the 2d Marine
Division was now able to go into corps reserve, as planned, on 4 July.
(Holland Smith, seeing the end in sight on Saipan, wanted this division
rested for the forthcoming assault on neighboring Tinian Island.)
The Japanese, meanwhile, were falling back to a final
defensive line north of Garapan. The American attack of the preceding
weeks had not only shattered their manpower, their artillery, and their
tanks, but the enemy also was desperate for food. "Many of them had been
so pressed for provisions that they were eating field grass and tree
bark."
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