Their Backs against the Sea: The Battle of Saipan and the Largest Banzai Attack of World War II

by Bill Sloan

  IN THE BEGINNING, more than two weeks earlier, only three men were involved in making the decision to remove Ralph Smith. They included Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, and Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. What the three of them did on that late afternoon of 24 June would impact many lives.

  But as far as anyone knows, they never discussed one of the major problems facing American forces—the fact that both Army and Marine intelligence had vastly underestimated the number of Japanese committed to defending the southern end of Saipan.

  An Army report had strongly suggested that no more than three to five hundred Japanese troops were in the area—actually, there may have been close to two thousand. And Holland Smith and his Marine staff were all but certain that the Japanese were on the brink of defeat at Nafutan Point. Holland Smith’s orders of the day called for one Army battalion to “mop up” any remaining enemy detachments, a strong indication that it was to be a relatively minor job. The rest of the 27th Division was to turn north in support of the two Marine divisions.

  From this point on, the 2nd Battalion of the 105th Infantry had the considerable task of clearing Nafutan Point—with a terrain that was mountainous and full of cliffs, crevices, and caves—on its own. Thinly spread across 2,500 yards, the Army troops at first made little progress.

  Robert Sherrod, a correspondent for Life and Time magazines who would later become a central figure in the Smith vs. Smith episode, toured the area. He found the job at the southern end of the island extremely tough. The coral-rock formations provided natural caves, and one area of about fourteen hundred yards was laced with jagged rocks that largely favored the defenders.

  The “mopping up” phase of the battle was, at best, still several days away—a fact that seemed lost on Holland Smith.

  MEANWHILE, ON THE night of 20 June the Japanese were busy digging fortifications in the Nafutan Point area, and when the sun rose, the Americans were confronted with a new Japanese defensive position with a large number of machine guns and about a full company of fresh riflemen. As soon as it was light the Japanese opened fire, and several companies of the 165th suffered large losses. The US artillery responded, but it did little damage to the Japanese defenses. Combat continued throughout the day with little progress.

  At one point US tanks inadvertently turned and began firing at their own men. Lieutenant Luke Hammond of the 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, reported a dead corporal from A Company. He later learned the corporal was killed by American tanks because Lieutenant Colonel William O’Brien, commanding the 1st Battalion, had been unable to reach the tank crews by radio to warn them off.

  O’Brien eventually stopped the tanks by running out through a hail of fire, crawling up on the turret of the lead tank, and banging on it with his pistol butt. The tank contacted the other two tanks by radio, and the firing stopped.

  That afternoon Sergeant Thomas Baker volunteered to take up a position in his company’s rear to defend it against pockets of Japanese resistance the Americans had bypassed. Twice he found and attacked a group of soldiers and killed all of them—a total of two officers and sixteen enlisted men.

  WHEN HE RECEIVED Holland Smith’s “mopping up” order, Ralph Smith knew immediately that one battalion of men was not nearly enough to clean out Nafutan Point. He contacted Holland Smith by phone, explained the situation, and was given permission to use two battalions. Several days later Holland Smith would criticize the order because it instructed the troops to “hold” rather than attack.

  During the night of 21 June the Japanese again dug new positions on a cliff about thirty feet up the side of Mount Nafutan. The approach to the cliff was up a steep, unprotected slope. At dawn on 22 June, as the men of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment tried to make the ascent, the furious fire they met was almost indescribable. In the space of a few seconds six men were killed or mortally wounded and twenty-one others were less seriously wounded. The 105th fell back.

  When Ralph Smith again consulted with Holland Smith, the Marine general blamed the lack of progress at Nafutan on the leadership ability of Colonel Leonard Bishop, commander of the 105th Infantry Regiment. “Colonel Bishop must not be permitted to delay,” Holland Smith said. “If he can’t do it, send somebody who can!”

  Ralph Smith pointed to the difficult terrain and the Japanese positions interspersed in caves and gullies. But he promised constant pressure. He thought the Point could be cleared in a couple more days.

  But in Holland Smith’s mind that still didn’t solve the problem of gaps left in the line between Ralph Smith’s 27th Division troops and the Marines. His reference to “mopping up” the area made clear that he thought the 27th Division would have little difficulty in carrying out the order. Instead, part of the line pressed forward while part of it lagged behind as company commanders waited until they had closed their lines and established closer contact with each other. In those cases no movement came until noon or after.

  Army thinking at the time dictated that if you gained a lot of ground during the day, soldiers were told to retreat at night and return to their foxholes. This was a practice the Marines hated. Another difference was the approach to warfare that each service took. Army ground forces stressed slow and steady operations with fewer frontal attacks. The Marines, by nature an assault force, emphasized immediate attacks on the enemy after landing.

  “Yeah, we regrouped,” Sergeant Nick Grinaldo recalled. “They put the Second Marines on the left going up toward Garapan, and the Fourth Marines were on the opposite side. The Marines had all the level ground. The 27th Division got stuck in the mountains fighting—they had to fight cave-to-cave, hand-to-hand a good part of the time.”

  The 27th had General Ralph Smith—“one hell of a good man,” according to Grinaldo. “The major reason he was relieved was because the Marines said the 27th couldn’t keep up with them. The Marines had the tank support down in the lowlands, which the 27th didn’t have. The Marines also requisitioned half of the 27th’s artillery—the 104th and 105th Field Artillery Battalions. There was no way the 27th could keep up with them under conditions like those.”

  The best weapons the 27th had left were 60-millimeter and 81-millimeter mortars, and half the time they couldn’t use them because of the terrain. There were mountains, gulches, hillsides—all with caves dug into them. As hard as they tried, the 27th couldn’t stay with the Marines. “You go past a cave that’s so small you never even noticed the opening,” said Grinaldo, “and the next thing you knew, you were getting shot at from behind.”

  Angered by the delay, Holland Smith personally called Colonel Bishop and, in effect, read him the riot act: “Colonel, this is General Smith. What’s holding you up down there? Sure, the ground’s rough, but it’s rough all over this island. That’s no excuse. How many Japs are in front of you? Well, if there aren’t any Japs, how the hell could you be held up? Now listen, Colonel. I want you to push ahead with your battalion and clean up that damned place. If you don’t, the Japs will break through and be all over the airfield. Now move out and take it. Do you understand?”

  The confrontation between the two generals was about to explode.

  ACTUALLY THE FEUD can likely be traced to a confrontation between the two Smiths seven months earlier on the little island of Makin in the Gilbert chain, where soft-spoken Ralph Smith commanded the 165th Regimental Combat Team in its first action in November 1943.

  He came ashore and set up his command post in a tent on the beach, and Holland Smith continued to harass him, for whatever reason. The two of them sat there together batting at mosquitoes while the irascible Holland Smith continued to criticize Ralph Smith. Suddenly there was a crackling of rifle fire, close in and on three sides, and a staff officer came running in, shouting, “Snipers! They’ve got us surrounded!’”

  Instead of getting flustered, Ralph Smith picked up his phone and told his men to have a couple of rifle companies prepare to sweep toward the CP from eithe
r direction. Then he hung up the phone and went about his business. In the meantime Holland Smith picked up his carbine and stalked into the bush. After about five minutes he returned, rubbing his hands. “Well, I took care of those bastards,” he said.

  The sniping continued for about twenty minutes following Holland Smith’s announcement that he had taken care of “those bastards.” Then Holland Smith turned to Ralph Smith and said, “Get your troops going. There’s not another Goddamned Jap left on this island.”

  Ralph Smith’s reply was simple and direct: “General, that plain isn’t so.”

  One observer of this episode would take a very special interest in Holland Smith, who he found to be “clearly a bully, something of a sadist, and tactically a chowderhead.” Later, in Hawaii, the account was passed to Major General Charles H. Corlett, commanding the 7th Division. The officer recounted what he had seen Holland Smith do at Makin and to air his conviction that Holland Smith was determined to make trouble for any Army general who came under him.

  MEANWHILE ATTACKS BY the 27th over the next few days were termed “faint hearted” by Holland Smith when “the means were readily available for complete success if a determined assault had been made.” The fact that he had not examined the terrain over which the 27th had to advance seemed to make little difference. Marine casualties, incidentally, had climbed to 6,165 in less than a week of fighting.

  It was in this context of all-around poor performance—at least as it appeared to Holland Smith—that he sought the help of Army Major General Sanderford Jarman, who would soon replace Ralph Smith as temporary commander of the 27th Division. He asked Jarman to see Ralph Smith and “appeal to him,” Holland Smith wrote, “as one Army man to another, on the grounds that the reputation of the Army was suffering through a lack of offensive spirit.”

  For whatever reasons it didn’t work. On the morning of 24 June the 27th Division failed, once again, to hold up its end of the bargain. The result had been to slow down the pace of the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions, operating on either side of the 27th, to a virtual standstill.

  To Holland Smith these results had been the last straw. As he saw it, the 27th Division had done nothing but stall in its traces since it had arrived. In a scenario that called for speed and swift action, the 27th had consistently faltered and floundered. In his mind it had already contributed to the loss of hundreds of Marines to wounds and death—and the loss of hundreds more if it was allowed to continue. Something had to be done to stop the bleeding—immediately.

  The atmosphere was tense that afternoon aboard the cruiser USS Indianapolis, flagship of Vice Admiral Spruance, commander of the US Fifth Fleet, where Holland Smith was joined by Rear Admiral Turner of the US Fifth Amphibious Force. They had come to see Spruance about a matter of utmost urgency.

  The subject was Ralph Smith, who seemed to have an inevitable habit of lagging behind the Marine divisions engaging the enemy on either side of the 27th—and in Holland Smith’s opinion, for no legitimate reason.

  “Ralph Smith has shown that he lacks aggressive spirit,” Holland Smith said, “and his division is slowing down our advance. He should be relieved.”

  There was nothing that awful, on the face of it, about being relieved and replaced in the midst of the greatest war in history. It happened to quite a few high-ranking officers in World War II and for a lot of different reasons. But a Marine general who removed an Army general was a bit of a different story. When General Jarman had talked to Ralph Smith beforehand about the gaps in the line, the Army commander had pledged to do better the next day. In fact, according to Holland Smith, Ralph Smith had said if he didn’t do better, he would “deserve to be replaced.”

  “There was no improvement the next day,” Holland Smith later claimed. “What had promised to be a swift, effective movement degenerated into a laggard action that almost came to a standstill. The two Marine flanks had to advance slowly to prevent the widening of the gaps between themselves and the 27th in the center.”

  After hearing the evidence presented by Holland Smith, Admiral Spruance glanced at Admiral Turner, and Turner nodded his agreement. “All right,” said Spruance, “relieve him, then.”

  THAT EVENING THE following message was dispatched from Spruance as commander of the Fifth Fleet: “You are authorized and directed to relieve Major General Ralph Smith from command of the 27th Division.… This action is taken in order that the offensive on Saipan may proceed in accordance with the plans and orders of the Commander, Northern Troops and Landing Force.”

  By the end of the day Ralph Smith was no longer in command of the 27th. He was replaced by General Jarman, who immediately replaced Colonel Bishop with his own chief of staff, Colonel Geoffrey O’Connell, who ordered six batteries of artillery into the fight. This, coupled with a strong suggestion for more aggressive tactics, led to the clearing of Nafutan Point and Ridge 300.

  The result was a controversy that lasted far beyond the twenty-four days of the battle of Saipan. It drove a stake into the heart of the 27th Division and soured relations between the Army and the Marine Corps so severely that some feared it might threaten the entire Pacific War effort.

  The departure of Ralph Smith was scarcely noted at the time by the rank and file of the division. But on the day Holland Smith removed him as commander of the 27th, Ralph Smith did two remarkable things. He spent most of 24 June with his troops on the front lines, personally investigating the conditions his soldiers were facing—and narrowly escaping death a time or two. (This is something that “Howlin’ Mad” Smith had never done; he sat in the secure surroundings of his Charan Kanoa headquarters and let Brigadier General Bobby Erskine go to the battlefield—whenever he could find the time.) And after Ralph Smith received word of his dismissal, he spent most of the afternoon and evening with his successor, General Jarman, explaining an imaginative plan he had formulated for breaking up the long-lasting stalemate in Death Valley.

  His plan called for a flanking-encircling operation, with one battalion of the 106th Infantry Regiment remaining at the south end of the valley to hold the Japanese in place, while the other two battalions of the 106th moved east and then north to surround the enemy. The next day, as Ralph Smith was being flown back to Hawaii in the early hours of 25 June, General Jarman was eagerly following through with this plan of attack. And after the battle Jarman would change his mind about Ralph Smith’s sacking. Initially agreeing with Holland Smith about the 27th’s lack of aggressiveness, he would later state that Holland Smith was too prejudiced to be impartial.

  THERE WAS ONE remaining bad apple in the bunch—Colonel Russell Ayers, commanding the 106th Infantry Regiment. Instead of following the route Ralph Smith and General Jarman had indicated, when his men came under fire, he allowed them to retreat to their point of departure at the start of the day, and the would-be offensive ended where it began. General Jarman had threatened earlier to relieve Ayers and ultimately did so on 26 June.

  On 28 June a permanent replacement, Major General George Griner of Whiteburg, Georgia, succeeded Jarman. After some troop deployment, the 106th Infantry Regiment made the largest gain yet achieved by any regiment in the fight for Death Valley on 29 June. In the days that followed, the U-shaped gap that had so worried Holland Smith had been eliminated, the 106th had advanced a thousand yards, and by 30 June all three divisions were in a line and ready to complete the conquest of the island.

  ON 25 JUNE Japanese General Saito sent a message to Tokyo delineating the harsh state of the Japanese defense:

  The fight on Saipan as things stand now is progressing one-sidedly, since along with the tremendous power of his barrages, the enemy holds control of sea and air. In daytime even the deployment of units is very difficult, and at night the enemy can make out our movements by using illumination shells.… Due to our serious lack of weapons and equipment, activity and control is hindered considerably. Moreover, we are menaced by brazenly low-flying planes, and the enemy blasts at us with fierce naval and artillery cross-f
ire.… The attack of the enemy proceeds ceaselessly, day and night, and as they advance with the aid of terrific bombardments it becomes apparent that the northern part of the island… cannot be held, with our skeleton strength of 20%.

  In a week when General Saito was forced to move repeatedly to avoid contact with the Americans and any prospect of a Japanese victory was rapidly fading, he also sent his usual message to the troops: “Positions are to be defended to the bitter end!”

  By this time the Japanese high command in Tokyo as well as their subordinates on Saipan were compelled to admit that the situation was critical. The island had been cut in two, and the southern part of it, including the main airfield, was for all practical purposes in American hands. In the face of unrelenting pressure from their attackers, the Japanese were withdrawing to a “line of security” that ran from a point just below Garapan to the south slopes of Mount Tapotchau and then to a point on Magicienne Bay.

  With this situation as a backdrop, “Howlin’ Mad” Smith soon became nationally known when newspaper and magazine articles quoted him as saying that the commanders of the 27th Infantry had made it “the worst division I’ve ever seen.” He called the soldiers of the 27th “yellow” and “not aggressive.” He said he hoped that the Marines passing through the lines of the 27th wouldn’t touch off a fight by calling its members “yellow bastards” as they passed through. That actually happened, according to Lieutenant Claude Duval of the 4th Marines. In one attack, the 4th Marines were drawing artillery, mortar, and light arms fire from the left, and the Army had pulled back, leaving the left flank open. The high-ranking Marine officers wouldn’t let their troops move over there because a “big to-do” was going on between the generals about the Army division. That area was in the Army division’s zone of action, but the 27th had not kept up with the Marines.