The photo of Matthews, Leary, and Nightingale hitting the beach hangs in the Saipan Exhibit at the National Marine Corps Museum at Quantico, Virginia.
Details of the weather on invasion day are from the Archives and Special Collections at the Library of the Marine Corps.
Reverend Charles Goe provides us with a description of the invasion-morning prayers on some of the vessels, as well as the fears and the state of mind of the Marines.
Along the ridgeline above Lake Susupe and in the hills three miles east of Charan Kanoa, Lieutenant Colonel Nakashima’s 3rd Independent Artillery Regiment had orders to pour artillery onto the beach. Observation posts contained large wall diagrams that marked registration, or firing, points on the reefs, the channels, the roads, and the beaches, and the 75-mm and 105-mm fieldpieces had excellent fields of fire.
General Schmidt opened up the 4th Division command post at 7:30 p.m. on D-Day.
Marines hated the head nets, which limited their vision and were so heavy that some complained they could not breathe.
Borta opted to use the M1, even though it was four pounds heavier than a .30-caliber carbine. The M1 also had superior muzzle velocity and hitting power.
Captain William Barr was later quoted in an article titled “Officers Pleased with Performance of Race Fighters” that appeared in the Atlanta Daily World, saying, “Mortar shells were still raining down as my boys unloaded ammunition, demolition material, and other supplies from the ammunition trucks. They set up ‘security’ to keep out snipers as they helped load casualties aboard boats to go to hospital ships. Rifle fire was thick as they rode guard on trucks carrying high-octane gasoline from the beach. A squad leader killed a Jap sniper that had crawled into a foxhole next to his. They stood waist deep in surf unloading boats as vital supplies of food and water were brought in … there were only a few scattered snipers on the beach. My boys accounted for several of these.”
An article in the July 24, 1944, issue of Time magazine read, “Since June 1942, when the Marine Corps broke with 167-year tradition, and began recruiting Negroes, the marines, white and black, have carried on with none of the public race troubles that beset the vastly larger U.S. Army. Said one white Marine officer of this phenomenon: ‘We take only the cream of the crop, and they are all so damn proud to be marines.’ The Corps still has no Negro officers. But it has 16,000 strapping Negro enlisted men. Some of them have become hardboiled drill instructors in the classic mold and some have reached the top enlisted grade—sergeant major. Most Negro marines are in service companies, but all marines are combat-minded.”
Time correspondent Robert Sherrod wrote about the first black Marines to see action: “Negro marines, under fire for the first time, have rated a universal 4.0 on Saipan. Some landed with the assault waves. All in the four service companies have been under fire at one time or another during the battle. Some have been wounded, several of them have been killed in action.… Primarily they were used as ammunition carriers and beachhead unloading parties, but on Saipan some were used for combat. When Japanese counterattacked the 4th Marine Division near Charan Kanoa, twelve Negroes were thrown into the defense line. Their white officers said they accounted for about 15 Japs. One Negro jumped into a foxhole already occupied by a wounded white marine, who handed him a grenade. ‘I don’t know how to use this thing,’ said the Negro. The wounded man showed him how. The Negro—named Jankins—threw the grenade, knocked out three Japs manning a machine gun. Said Lieutenant Joe Grimes, a white Texan: ‘I watched those Negro boys carefully. They were under intense mortar and artillery fire as well as rifle and machine-gun fire. They all kept on advancing until the counterattack was stopped.’
“But Negro marines were at their best while performing their normal duties. Credited with being the workingest men on Saipan, they performed prodigious feats of labor both while under fire and after beachheads were well secured. Some unloaded boats for three days, with little or no sleep, working in water up to waist deep. Some in floating dump details were the first men to pile off their ship toward the beach. On an open transport, where a detachment of Negroes was left to load small boats, they volunteered to unload and tend the wounded who were brought back to the transport. They handled stretchers, washed the wounded and even wrote letters for them.”
Marine Corps Commandant General Vandegrift was equally impressed. “The Negro Marines are no longer on trial,” he said in the January 6, 1945, issue of the Camp Lejeune Globe. “They are Marines, period.”
The 8th Marines who had been attacking eastward were ordered back from Lake Susupe to strengthen the 2nd Division’s lines. The Marines backtracked reluctantly.
CHAPTER 25: A LONG, BITTER STRUGGLE
The 4th Battalion of the 14th Marines set up along the coastal road about 350 yards inland from the beach. Amazingly, the battalion was ready to fire just over an hour after coming ashore.
Empty star-shell cases weighed thirty-five pounds. Because they often fell within American lines, they terrified the Marines. They also emitted a frightening “whir” that rattled the men almost as much as the Japanese artillery.
One Marine battalion commander praised the Army’s 708th Tank Battalion, saying they took “more than their share of punishment” and “diverted enemy attention from the amphibious tractors carrying troops.… I shall always remember the excellent support given to my battalion by the Army LVT(A)s.”
The 20th Depot Battalion’s commanding officer, Captain William Adams, was quoted in the September 2, 1944, issue of the Pittsburgh Courier, in a story headlined NEGRO MARINES WIN BATTLE SPURS; DEFEATED JAPAN’S BEST ON SAIPAN.
PFC Leroy Seals of Brooklyn, New York, was wounded a few hours after the landing and died the next day.
The Japanese had hoped that the next U.S. objective would be against the Palaus or another site farther south, where the circumstances favored the Combined Fleet. Many thought that Mitscher’s Task Force 58 attack on June 11 was a mere diversion. It was not until June 14 that Japan resigned itself to the inevitability of the attack on the Marianas. When it did so, it coordinated an aggressive approach, an effort that included the Combined Fleet and base air forces at Iwo Jima, Guam, Palau, Yap, and Wolei.
The 165th Infantry Regiment’s problems began almost immediately. General Howlin’ Mad Smith’s decision to land the Army’s 27th Division forced the 165th’s commanding officer (Colonel Gerard Kelley) to land his men on the night of June 16, sacrificing order for speed. At 3:30 a.m. on June 17, elements of the regiment were scattered along three miles of sand from Red Beach south to Yellow Beach. With the majority of his men ashore, Kelley now faced an equally daunting task—assembling them in time for the morning advance.
The military government was hostile to the Catholic Church on Saipan. On one occasion the military governor said, “The Catholic Church must not be good, if Hitler is persecuting it so vigorously in Europe.”
The 4th Division’s artillery unit, the 14th Marines, landed on D-Day. The entire regiment was ashore by dark.
General Saito committed forty-four tanks and the Special Naval Landing Force to June 17’s early-morning assault. Defense of the island was divided between the 31st Army, under Saito, and the Navy’s Central Pacific Fleet and 5th Base Force, both of which were commanded by Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who had directed the assault on Pearl Harbor. As the nominal head of the Saipan garrison, Saito’s orders to Nagumo were simple: that he should personally direct the naval attack from the north, moving his troops down the coast road from Garapan in order to “annihilate the enemy’s front line and advance towards Oreai [Charan Kanoa] Airfield.” In the first seventy-five minutes of the battle, the 10th Marines fired eight hundred rounds. Perhaps resenting Saito’s order, Admiral Nagumo never sent his troops into the battle. Major Carl Hoffman provides a detailed account of this battle.
CHAPTER 26: A HEALTHY SPIRIT OF COMPETITION
Many of the details for this chapter are derived from Joe Small’s unfinished account about his Port Chica
go experience.
Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps, and any businesses they owned were sold or completely shut down and the spaces were leased out, usually to the new African American residents, who, because of racial covenants, were prevented from living in many other neighborhoods in the Bay Area.
White musicians also were fond of the Fillmore and often came to clubs to jam with African American musicians. The police, however, were not particularly happy about this form of integration, and staged many raids on black businesses. During the war years, the Fillmore’s population was almost fifty thousand.
CHAPTER 27: THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE
Admiral Frank “Jack” Fletcher had a valid operational reason to pull out of Guadalcanal. Because of the losses at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Coral Sea, the U.S. Navy was down to two carriers in the entire Pacific and couldn’t afford to lose even one more.
The Japanese high command, anticipating a showdown, issued Imperial Headquarters Directive No. 373, ordering the navy and army to prepare for “decisive action” by the end of May.
Tojo was the minister of war from 1939 to 1944, and Osami Nagano was chief of the Navy General Staff from 1941 to 1944.
According to Morison, by mid-1944, Spruance possessed seven carriers to Japan’s five, eight light carriers to its four, seven battleships to its five, sixty-nine destroyers to its twenty-eight, thirteen light cruisers to its two, and 956 planes to its 473. Japan had more heavy cruisers, eleven to eight.
Although Spruance was eager to engage the enemy, he was reluctant to expose his ground troops on Saipan to danger. Lending credence to his fears was a document that MacArthur sent him detailing Japanese carrier doctrine. Morison speculates that the document was Admiral Koga’s Z Plan. Morison writes: “He is not to be blamed for assuming that the Japanese would divide their forces. But no reinforcements were coming south from Japan, and Ozawa had no intention of trying an end run. Defending himself Spruance later said, ‘It would have been much more satisfactory if, instead of waiting in a covering position, I could have steamed westward in search of the Japanese fleet.’ ”
Japanese planes, which lacked armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, could attack from a distance of 300 miles and American planes, which were heavier, had a shorter range of 200 miles.
The reply of the chief of staff of the 43rd Division to Tojo is from Major Carl Hoffman’s Saipan: The Beginning of the End.
General Ralph Smith’s quote is from Hoffman.
Two days after taking the airfield, the Seabees began repairing it. By June 22, fighters were able to take off and land there.
In an article for the March 1999 issue of World War II magazine, John Wukovits offers a brief explanation of Operation A-Go and vivid details of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
Statistics regarding Admiral Ozawa’s losses vary from 383 lost to Samuel Eliot Morison’s figure of 476, which includes land-based planes from Guam.
When Ozawa’s flagship, the Taiho, exploded, only five hundred of the 2,150 crew members were saved.
When Mitscher said to his pilots, “Give ’em hell, boys,” he added, “Wish I were with you.”
Admiral Ozawa blamed the defeat not only on his own inadequacy, but also on the lack of skills of his untrained pilots. After consulting with the navy minister, Admiral Toyoda refused to accept Ozawa’s resignation. Ozawa retained his command, and, according to Morison, was later bested by Admiral Halsey in the Battle of Cape Engano.
In the aftermath of the Battle of the Philippine Sea, many admirals expressed their dissatisfaction with Spruance’s conduct. Admiral Jocko Clark claimed that “[i]t was the chance of a century missed.” Mitscher wrote in his after-action report that “[t]he enemy escaped. He had been badly hurt by one aggressive carrier strike, at the one time he was within range. His fleet was not sunk.” Admiral Montgomery wrote, “Results of the action were extremely disappointing to all hands.” Then he added that it was “unfortunate” that Mitscher was “not permitted to take the offensive until too late to prevent the enemy’s retirement.” Morison makes an argument for Spruance. Mitscher, he points out, was “responsible only for Task Force 58,” so “his absorbing passion was to destroy the Japanese carriers.” Spruance, however, “had the overwhelming responsibility for Operation ‘Forager’; for the Joint Expeditionary Force as well as the carriers; for the troops.” Morison adds that his “objective was to secure the Marianas.” On a more critical note, Morison writes that “a powerful striking force as mobile as the fast carriers should never be tied to the apron strings of an amphibious operation,” and that “in view of the known strength of Ozawa’s Mobile Fleet any possible ‘end run’ could have been dealt with adequately by the ships left to guard Saipan.”
Eight years later, in a letter to Morison, Spruance wrote, “I think that going out after the Japanese and knocking their carriers out would have been much better and more satisfactory than waiting for them to attack us; but we were at the start of a very important and large amphibious operation and we could not afford to gamble and place it in jeopardy.”
The Imperial Rescript was promulgated by the Emperor Meiji in 1882.
The “ghost” in the modern Japanese Army that allowed military strategists to forgo caution and field officers to push their troops beyond what was considered humanly possible was the samurai spirit. Around the ninth century, as feudalism evolved in Japan, samurai, or “those who serve,” were a small, elite warrior class within the feudal system. Samurai emphasized the twin virtues of loyalty and self-sacrifice and evolved an ethic known as bushido, the “Way of the Warrior.” In the first half of the twentieth century the Japanese military resurrected bushido, and distorted it as a way to transform Japan’s entire male population into willing warriors. In fact, at the time, the whole of Japanese society was being systematically indoctrinated and militarized. Slogans were omnipresent: “One hundred million [people], one mind” (ichoku isshin); “Abolish desire until victory” (hoshi-garimasen katsu made wa). Dissent was aggressively suppressed. Unwavering dedication to the Emperor, to Japan, to a culture that considered itself morally superior to the bankrupt West, became the norm. In fact, by World War II, the average Japanese citizen had been instilled with a master-race mentality that was every bit as dangerous as its German counterpart.
CHAPTER 28: VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Von Clausewitz wrote the military treatise Vom Kriege, On War. The annual rainfall in Saipan is 90–120 inches.
Details regarding the health of the men are from the Archives and Special Collections at the Library of the Marine Corps.
The word malaria comes from the Greek, meaning “unpleasant” or “odious.” The Aedes mosquito also transmits yellow fever.
Japanese soldiers were sent off with comfort bags (imonbukuro), each one containing a hand towel (tenugui) and a loincloth (fundoshi) as well as a bar of soap, postcards, and a pencil with which they were encouraged to write in their diaries.
In The GI War Against Japan, Peter Schrijvers writes about how American servicemen, fueled by rage and revenge, adopted an increasingly savage attitude to their Japanese enemies. In War Without Mercy, John Dower explores similar developments in the psyche of American soldiers in the Pacific.
War in the Pacific, to quote E. B. Sledge, was fueled by a “brutish, primitive hatred.” Perhaps nowhere was that more apparent than on Saipan. Veteran correspondent Ernie Pyle, who was transferred to the Mariana Islands from Northern Europe, observed this new attitude toward the enemy. “In Europe,” he noted, “we felt our enemies, horrible and deadly as they were, were still people. But out here I’ve already gathered the feeling that the Japanese are looked upon as something inhuman and squirmy—like some people feel about cockroaches or mice.” In War Without Mercy, John Dower cites a cartoon in The American Legion Magazine depicting monkeys in a zoo that had posted a sign reading, “Any similarity between us and the Japs is purely coincidental.”
In one cave, Graf’s Company E discover
ed dozens of women and children and a few adult men. Jimmy Haskell was in charge of taking them to the rear. Ever softhearted, he collected ration boxes and opened them up and passed candy out among the children, when he caught a man grabbing candy from a young girl. Haskell flew into a rage and smashed his rifle butt into the man’s chest, sending him to the ground with a thud.
Even by the battle’s second week, Japanese soldiers held on to hope that they could still defeat the Americans. One wrote in his diary on June 26, “This is the day the Westerners will be surprised.”
The 106th Infantry regiment had been the 27th Division’s reserve until June 20, when Holland Smith succeeded in convincing Admiral Turner that he needed it urgently.
The senior army official was Major General Sanderford Jarman, Saipan Garrison Force commander.
After the Marianas campaign, a board of Army officers inquiring into the dismissal of Ralph Smith asked Colonel Ayres, the 106th’s commanding officer, what would have happened had he pressed the attack through Death Valley. “My candid opinion,” Ayres answered, “is that the regiment would have disappeared.”
That evening Robert Sherrod saw Holland Smith at his headquarters, describing the general as “nervous” and “remorseful.” In an attempt to explain his actions, Holland Smith said, “Ralph Smith is my friend, but, good God, I’ve got a duty to my country. I’ve lost seven thousand Marines. Can I afford … to let my Marines die in vain? I know I’m sticking my neck out—the National Guard will chop it off—but my conscience is clear. I did my duty.”
Disappointed with the progress of the Army’s 165th Regiment at Makin during the assault of the Gilberts, Smith asserted that “any marine division” would have taken the island in one day, whereas the Army took three. He bemoaned the regiment’s “lack of offensive spirit,” but added that it was less a fault of the men than of the leadership—specifically the 27th Division commander, General Ralph Smith. Of his army counterpart, Howlin’ Mad Smith said, “Had Ralph Smith been a Marine I would have relieved him of his command on the spot.” The quote about relieving Smith is from Coral and Brass. This was the source of the enmity between Lieutenant General Richardson, Army commander in the Central Pacific, and Holland Smith. Richardson resented the way Smith stormed ashore and berated Ralph Smith.
The Color of War Page 49
