Battle of Saipan

In the campaigns of 1943 and the first half of 1944, the Allies had captured the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands and the Papuan Peninsula of New Guinea. This left the Japanese holding the Philippines, the Caroline Islands, the Palau Islands, and the Mariana Islands.

It had always been the intention of the American planners to bypass the Carolines and Palauan islands and to seize the Marianas and Taiwan. From these latter bases, communications between the Japanese archipelago and Japanese forces to the south and west could be cut. From the Marianas, Japan would be well within the range of an air offensive relying on the new Boeing B-29 Superfortress long-range bomber with its operational radius of 3,250 mi (5,230 km).

While not part of the original American plan, Douglas MacArthur, commander of the Southwest Pacific Area command, obtained authorization to advance through New Guinea and Morotai toward the Philippines. This allowed MacArthur to keep his personal pledge to liberate the Philippines, made in his "I shall return" speech, and also allowed the active use of the large forces built up in the southwest Pacific theatre. The Japanese, expecting an attack somewhere on their perimeter, thought an attack on the Caroline Islands most likely. To reinforce and supply their garrisons, they needed naval and air superiority, so Operation A-Go, a major carrier attack, was prepared for June 1944.

Map of U.S. landings in the Pacific with Saipan circled

United States
US Fifth Fleet (Vice Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, USN)

• Northern Attack Force (Task Force 52) (Vice Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner)

Expeditionary Troops (Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, USMC)
Approx. 59,800 officers and enlisted

• V Amphibious Corps (Lt. Gen. Smith)
  • 2nd Marine Division (Maj. Gen. Thomas E. Watson, USMC)
  • 4th Marine Division (Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, USMC)
  • 27th Infantry Division (Army) (Maj. Gen. Ralph C. Smith, USA)

Japan
Central Pacific Area Fleet HQ (Vice Adm. Chūichi Nagumo)[lower-alpha 1]
Thirty-first Army (Lt. Gen. Hideyoshi Obata)[lower-alpha 2]
Defenses of Saipan (Lt. Gen. Yoshitsugu Saitō)[lower-alpha 3]
Approx. 25,500 army and 6,200 navy personnel

• 43rd Division
• 47th Independent Mixed Brigade
• Miscellaneous units

Map showing the progress of the Battle of Saipan

Red Beach 2 at 13:00

Marines march through Garapan, 6 July 1944

Marines take cover behind a M4 Sherman tank while clearing Japanese forces from the northern end of the island of Saipan. 8 July 1944.

Holding a Colt M1911, a Marine moves cautiously through the jungle of Saipan. July 1944.

A Marine talks a terrified Chamorro woman and her children into abandoning their refuge.

Battle of Saipan - US Navy docked GAG03

Japanese cannon at Saipan, after battle

Japanese beach defense

The bombardment of Saipan began on 13 June 1944 with 7 modern fast battleships, 11 destroyers and 10 fast minesweepers under Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. The battleships delivered 2,400 16 in (410 mm) shells, but to avoid potential minefields, fire was from a distance of 10,000 yd (9,100 m) or more and crews were inexperienced in shore bombardment. The following day, 14 June 1944, two naval bombardment groups led by Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf arrived on the shore of Saipan. This force was the main naval fire support for the seizure of the island and consisted of 7 older battleships, 11 cruisers, and 26 destroyers, along with destroyer transports and fast minesweepers. The old battleships, commissioned between 1915 and 1921, were rigorously trained in shore bombardment and were able to move into closer range. Four of them (California, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee) were survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor.[8]

The landings[9] began at 07:00 on 15 June 1944. More than 300 LVTs landed 8,000 Marines on the west coast of Saipan by about 09:00. Eleven fire support ships covered the Marine landings. The naval force consisted of the battleships Tennessee and California, the cruisers Birmingham and Indianapolis, the destroyers Norman Scott, Monssen, Coghlan, Halsey Powell, Bailey, Robinson, and Albert W. Grant. Careful artillery preparation — placing flags in the lagoon to indicate the range — allowed the Japanese to destroy about 20 amphibious tanks, and they strategically placed barbed wire, artillery, machine gun emplacements, and trenches to maximize the American casualties. However, by nightfall, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions had a beachhead about 6 mi (10 km) wide and 0.5 mi (1 km) deep.[10] The Japanese counter-attacked at night but were repulsed with heavy losses. On 16 June, units of the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division landed and advanced on the airfield at Ås Lito. Again the Japanese counter-attacked at night. On 18 June, Saito abandoned the airfield.

The invasion surprised the Japanese high command, which had been expecting an attack further south. Admiral Soemu Toyoda, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), saw an opportunity to use the A-Go force to attack the U.S. Navy forces around Saipan. On 15 June, he gave the order to attack. But the resulting battle of the Philippine Sea was a disaster for the IJN, which lost three aircraft carriers and hundreds of planes. The garrisons of the Marianas would have no hope of resupply or reinforcement.

Without resupply, the battle on Saipan was hopeless for the defenders, but the Japanese were determined to fight to the last man. Saito organized his troops into a line anchored on Mount Tapotchau in the defensible mountainous terrain of central Saipan. The nicknames given by the Americans to the features of the battle — "Hell's Pocket", "Purple Heart Ridge" and "Death Valley" — indicate the severity of the fighting. The Japanese used many caves in the volcanic landscape to delay the attackers, by hiding during the day and making sorties at night. The Americans gradually developed tactics for clearing the caves by using flamethrower teams supported by artillery and machine guns.

The operation was marred by inter-service controversy when Marine General Holland Smith, unsatisfied with the performance of the 27th Division, relieved its commander, Army Major General Ralph C. Smith. However, General Holland Smith had not inspected the terrain over which the 27th was to advance. Essentially, it was a valley surrounded by hills and cliffs under Japanese control. The 27th took heavy casualties and eventually, under a plan developed by General Ralph Smith and implemented after his relief, had one battalion hold the area while two other battalions successfully flanked the Japanese.[11]

By 6 July, the Japanese had nowhere to retreat. Saito made plans for a final suicidal banzai charge. On the fate of the remaining civilians on the island, Saito said, "There is no longer any distinction between civilians and troops. It would be better for them to join in the attack with bamboo spears than be captured." At dawn of the 7 July, with a group of 12 men carrying a great red flag in the lead, the remaining able-bodied troops — about 4,000 men — charged forward in the final attack. Amazingly, behind them came the wounded, with bandaged heads, crutches, and barely armed. The Japanese surged over the American front lines, engaging both Army and Marine units. The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment were almost destroyed, losing well over 650 killed and wounded. However, the fierce resistance of these two battalions, as well as that of Headquarters Company, 105th Infantry, and of supply elements of 3rd Battalion, 10th Marine Artillery Regiment, resulted in over 4,300 Japanese killed and 2,000 dead US soldiers. For their actions during the 15-hour Japanese attack, three men of the 105th Infantry Regiment were awarded the Medal of Honor: Lt. Col. William O'Brien, Cpt. Ben L. Salomon, Pvt. Thomas A. Baker, all posthumously. The attack on 7 July would be the largest Japanese Banzai charge in the Pacific War.[12][4]

By 16:15 on 9 July, Admiral Turner announced that Saipan was officially secured.[13] Saito, along with commanders Hirakushi and Igeta, committed suicide in a cave. Vice-admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the naval commander who led the Japanese carriers at Pearl Harbor, also committed suicide in the closing stages of the battle. He had been in command of the Japanese naval air forces stationed on the island.

In the end, almost the entire garrison of troops on the island — at least 29,000 — died. For the Americans, the victory was the most costly to date in the Pacific War: out of 71,000 who landed, 2,949 were killed and 10,464 wounded.[14][15] Future Hollywood actor Lee Marvin was among the many Americans wounded. He was serving with "I" Company, 24th Marine Regiment, when he was hit by shrapnel in the buttocks by Japanese mortar fire during the assault on Mount Tapochau. He was awarded the Purple Heart and was given a medical discharge with the rank of private first class in 1945.[16]

Marines use a M3 Satan to incinerate a Japanese pillbox on Saipan

Gen. Smith and V Amphibious Corps anticipated that taking Saipan would be difficult and they wanted to have a mechanized flamethrowing capability. Research, development, and procurement made that a long-term prospect. So VAC purchased 30 Canadian Ronson flamethrowers and requested that the Army's Chemical Warfare Service in Hawaii install them in M3 Stuarts. Seabees with the CWS had 24 ready for the battle.

While the battle officially ended on July 9, Japanese resistance still persisted with Captain Sakae Ōba and 46 other soldiers who survived with him during the last banzai charge.[17][18] After the battle, Oba and his soldiers led many civilians throughout the jungle of the island to escape capture by the Americans, while also conducting guerrilla-style attacks on pursuing forces. The Americans tried numerous times to hunt them down but failed due to their speed and stealth. In September 1944, the Marines began conducting patrols in the island's interior, searching for survivors who were raiding their camp for supplies.[18] Although some of the soldiers wanted to fight, Captain Ōba asserted that their primary concerns were to protect the civilians and to stay alive to continue the war. At one point, the Japanese soldiers and civilians were almost captured by the Americans as they hid in a clearing and ledges of a mountain, some were less than 20 feet (6.1 m) above the heads of the Marines, but the Americans failed to see them.[17] Oba's holdout lasted for over a year (approximately 16 months) before finally surrendering on December 1, 1945, three months after the official surrender of Japan.

Oba was so successful in his resistance that the Marines nicknamed him the "Fox", and once even caused the reassignment of a commander.[17]

Being a former Spanish and then German territory, Saipan became a Mandate of Japan by order of the League of Nations after World War I, and thus a large number of Japanese civilians lived there by World War II — at least 25,000.[19] The U.S. erected a civilian prisoner encampment on 23 June 1944 that soon had more than 1,000 inmates. Electric lights at the camp were conspicuously left on overnight to attract other civilians with the promise of three warm meals and no risk of being shot in combat accidentally.[19]

The weapons used and the tactics of close quarter fighting resulted in high civilian casualties. Civilian shelters were located virtually everywhere on the island, with very little difference from military bunkers noticeable to attacking Marines. The standard method of clearing suspected bunkers was the use of high-explosive and/or high-explosives augmented with petroleum (e.g., gelignite, napalm, diesel fuel). Consequently, there were high civilian casualties.[20]

More than 1,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle to take the offered privileged place in the afterlife, some jumping from places later named "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff". These would become part of the National Historic Landmark District as Landing Beaches; Aslito/Isley Field; & Marpi Point, Saipan Island, designated in 1985. Today the sites are a memorial and Japanese people visit to console the victims' souls.[21][22]

Robert H. McCard

Robert H. McCard

On 16 June 1944, Gunnery Sergeant Robert H. McCard, a U.S. Marine, killed sixteen enemies while sacrificing himself to ensure the safety of his tank crew. McCard was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. The USS Robert H. McCard (DD-822), a Gearing-class destroyer, was named in his honor.

Harold G. Epperson

On 25 June 1944, PFC Harold G. Epperson, part of the 2nd Marine Division, threw himself on a grenade to contain the blast from killing members of his squad. For his bravery and sacrifice, PFC Epperson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.[23] Epperson's Medal of Honor was presented to his mother in a ceremony on Wednesday, 4 July 1945 in Tiger Stadium, Massillon, Ohio. The USS Epperson (DD-719), a Gearing-class destroyer, was named in his honor.

William O'Brien

When the 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment came under attack from a much larger enemy force on 7 July, Lieutenant Colonel William O'Brien refused to leave the front lines even after being wounded, and continued to lead his men until being overrun and killed. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on 9 May 1945, for his actions throughout the battle for Saipan. The U.S. Army ship USAT Col. William J. O'Brien, which served in the Pacific Ocean at the end of World War II, was named in his honor.

Thomas A. Baker

On 7 July, Private Thomas A. Baker and his comrades from the 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, came under attack by a large Japanese force. Although seriously wounded early in the attack, he refused to be evacuated and continued to fight in the close-range battle until running out of ammunition. When a comrade was wounded while trying to carry him to safety, Baker insisted that he be left behind. At his request, his comrades left him propped against a tree and gave him a pistol, which had eight bullets remaining. When American forces retook the position, they found the pistol, now empty, and eight dead Japanese soldiers around Baker's body. Baker was posthumously promoted to sergeant and, on 9 May 1945, awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions throughout the battle for Saipan.[24]

Ben L. Salomon

On 7 July 1944, Army Captain Ben L. Salomon, the battalion dentist of 2nd Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division aided the evacuation of wounded soldiers. After defending his unarmed patients from four Japanese soldiers, he manned a machine gun post and effectively repelled numerous enemy forces to enable the evacuation of wounded personnel. When his body was recovered after the battle, 98 dead Japanese soldiers were found in front of his position. For gallantry in battle, Captain Ben L. Salomon was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in May 2002.[25]

Guy Gabaldon

Isely Field, filled with B-29 bombers, mid-1945

PFC Guy Gabaldon, of Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, was a Mexican-American from Los Angeles. He is officially credited with capturing more than 1,000 Japanese prisoners during the battle. PFC Gabaldon, who was raised by Japanese-Americans, used a combination of street Japanese and guile to convince soldiers and civilians alike that U.S. troops were not barbarians, and that they would be well treated upon surrender. For his outstanding bravery, which earned him the nickname, "The Pied Piper of Saipan," Gabaldon received a Silver Star, which was upgraded to the Navy Cross.[26] During the war, his commanders had requested that he receive the Medal of Honor for his actions; however, his initial award was the Silver Star. In 1998, efforts were re-initiated to secure the Medal of Honor for PFC Gabaldon.[27] The effort was ongoing in 2006.[28]

Although major fighting had officially ceased on 9 July, pockets of Japanese resistance continued. In September 1944, U.S. Marines began patrols into the island interior in order to bring in civilians and soldiers still holding out in the jungles. A group led by Captain Sakae Oba managed to evade capture for more than 512 days until surrendering to American forces on 1 December 1945, three months after the official surrender of Japan. In February 2011, a film about Oba, Oba: The Last Samurai, was released in Japan.

With the capture of Saipan, the American military was now only 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) away from the home islands of Japan. The victory would prove to be one of the most important strategic moments during the war in the Pacific Theater, as the Japanese archipelago was now within striking distance of United States' B-29 bombers.[29] From this point on, Saipan would become the launch point for retaking other islands in the Mariana chain and the invasion of the Philippines in October 1944. Four months after capture, more than 100 B-29s from Saipan's Isely Field were regularly attacking the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands and the Japanese mainland. In response, Japanese aircraft attacked Saipan and Tinian on several occasions between November 1944 and January 1945. The U.S. capture of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) ended further Japanese air attacks.

The loss of Saipan was a heavy blow to both the military and civilian administration of Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tōjō. According to one Japanese admiral: "Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan." U.S. Marine Corps General Holland Smith said: "It was the decisive battle of the Pacific offensive [...] it opened the way to the Japanese home islands."[30] Shortly after Saipan was taken, a meeting at the Imperial General Headquarters was convened where it was decided that a symbolic change of leadership should be made: Tōjō would step aside and Emperor Hirohito would have less involvement in day-to-day military affairs, even though he was defined as both head of state and the Generalissimo of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces according to the Meiji Constitution of 1889. The general staff believed it was now time to distance the Imperial House of Japan from blame as the tide of war turned against the Japanese.[19] Although Tōjō agreed to resign, Hirohito blocked his resignation because he considered Tōjō to be Japan's strongest war leader. But after Tōjō failed to shuffle his Cabinet due to excessive internal hostility, he conceded defeat.[19] On 18 July, Tōjō again submitted his resignation, this time unequivocally. His entire cabinet resigned with him.[31] Former IJA General Kuniaki Koiso became Prime Minister on 22 July. However, due to the legacy of Saipan, Koiso was nothing more than a titular Prime Minister, and was prevented by the Imperial General Headquarters from participating in any military decisions.[32]

Saipan also saw a change in the way Japanese war reporting was presented on the home front. Initially, as the battle started, Japanese accounts concentrated on the fighting spirit of the IJA and the heavy casualties it was inflicting on American forces. However, any reader familiar with Saipan's geography would have known from the chronology of engagements that the U.S. forces were relentlessly advancing northwards. No further mention of Saipan was made following the final battle on 7 July, which was not initially reported to the public.[33] However, after Tōjō's resignation on 18 July, an accurate, almost day-by-day, account of the defeat on Saipan was published jointly by the Army and Navy. It mentioned the near total loss of all Japanese soldiers and civilians on the island and the use of "human bullets". The reports had a devastating effect on Japanese opinion; mass suicides were now seen as defeat, not evidence of an "Imperial Way".[34] This was the first time Japanese forces had accurately been depicted in a battle since Midway, which had been proclaimed a victory.[34]

Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff, along with a number of surviving isolated Japanese fortifications, are recognized as historic sites on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The cliffs are also part of the National Historic Landmark District Landing Beaches; Aslito/Isley Field; & Marpi Point, Saipan Island, which also includes the American landing beaches, the B-29 runways of Isley Field, and the surviving Japanese infrastructure of the Aslito and Marpi Point airfields.

The American Memorial Park on Saipan commemorates the U.S. and Mariana veterans of the Mariana Islands campaign.

• The novel Away All Boats, from which a film was made, was based on the author's personal experiences on an attack transport. One long section gives a very detailed account of the battle as seen by the crew members both on board and on shore.
• The film Oba: The Last Samurai depicted the last banzai charge of the Japanese during the war, and the holdout of Captain Sakae Ōba.
• The novel Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy begins with a character purchasing land on Saipan near the Banzai Cliff where his parents and siblings jumped to their deaths. Saipan features heavily in the rest of the novel.
• Windtalkers is a 2002 film about the Battle of Saipan.

• Battle of Saipan order of battle
• Maritime Heritage Trail – Battle of Saipan
• Windtalkers
• USS Saipan (CVL-48)
• USS Saipan (LHA-2)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Battle of Saipan.

• Battle for the Mariana Islands on YouTube
• Small Unit Actions: The Fight on Tanapag Plain; 27th Division 6 July 1944