Westward to the Marshalls and Marianas

Westward to the Marshalls and Marianas

With the Gilberts in hand, Chester Nimitz had turned quickly to the Marshalls, a far-flung scattering of 1,000 islands and 32 atolls.

Nimitz boldly decided to open the campaign with a knife-thrust into the heart of the Marshalls – leapfrogging the heavily defended perimeter atolls and striking Kwajalein, 620 miles west of Tarawa.

Nimitz ordered Spruance to seize Kwajalein Island in the south, a regional enemy headquarters, and the twin islands of Roi-Namur to the north, site of a valuable airfield.

For the assault on Kwajalein, Smith’s expeditionary troops consisted of the 7th Infantry Division, Army veterans of the seizure of Attu Island in the Aleutians the previous year, and – making their combat debut – the new 4th Marine Division, which had sailed from San Diego loaded for bear.

The invasion group also included the reinforced 22d Marines, a separate regiment fresh from eighteen months of guard duty on Samoa, well led by Colonel John Walker and spoiling for a fight.

While [Admiral] Marc Mitscher’s fast carriers throttled the vaunted Japanese air attacks, Turner’s gunships began their preliminary bombardment of the main objectives in Kwajalein Atoll. Here the lessons of Tarawa shone like a bright lamp.

The bombardment – three times as long, twice the weight of shells, and infinitely better executed than Tarawa – flattened most Japanese positions ashore.

Compared to Tarawa, the capture of Roi-Namur came at a bargain cost. The 4th Marine Division seized both islands and the northern arc of Kwajalein, dispatched 3,500 Japanese defenders, and suffered less than a thousand combat casualties.

Nimitz, well pleased, decided to increase [Operation] Flintlock’s momentum. He ordered Spruance to strike next at the far western edge of the Marshalls, seizing isolated Eniwetok Atoll, 330 miles beyond Kwajalein.

As at Kwajalein, Captain [James] Jones’ Force Recon Marines landed stealthily on neighboring islands the day preceding D-Day to seize advance fire support bases for Marine and Army artillery units. These batteries combined their steady fire with spectacular naval and air bombardment on Engebi on D- Day to pulverize exposed Japanese positions.

Under an awesome umbrella of fire the 22nd Marines stormed Engebi and advanced swiftly inland.

Eniwetok Island presented a more difficult objective. Counter to intelligence reports, Japanese soldiers occupied the position in force, and the preliminary naval bombardment proved inadequate.

No one had an easy time on Eniwetok. When the GIs continued to wrestle with strong resistance, [Marine Brigadier General Thomas] Watson committed his reserve, the 3d Battalion, 22d Marines. The Marines had their hands full. Securing the thickly wooded island took three gruesome days.

Thanks to Tarawa’s priceless lessons, Operation Flintlock succeeded at a speed and overall economy almost beyond belief to strategic planners.

In the Central Pacific, the Joint Chiefs ordered Nimitz to execute Operation Forager, a giant, thousand-mile leap westward to seize Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in the Marianas.

Two U.S. officers plant the American flag on Guam eight minutes after U.S. Marines and Army assault troops landed on the Central Pacific island on July 20, 1944.

National Archives

Bold in concept, enormous in scale, Forager would literally take the war to Japan’s front yard, provide suitable airfields within range of the home islands for the USAAF’s new B-29 Superfortress bombers, and – surely – lure the Combined Fleet out of hiding for a climactic sea fight.

Three veteran outfits comprised this force: the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions and the Army’s 27th Division.

Tarawa’s tiny Betio Island – barely a half-square mile of sand and coral – had been bad enough. Saipan, by comparison, had seventy-two square miles of mountains, volcanic rock, cliffs, thick woods.

Holland Smith, ever the realist, called it right in advance. “We are through with flat atolls,” he told reporters. “Now we are up against mountains and caves where the Japs can really dig in. A week from now there will be a lot of dead Marines.”

Thirty-two thousand Imperial Army and Navy rikusentai awaited the V Amphibious Corps on Saipan, by far the largest concentration of forces the Central Pacific drive had yet encountered.

Command of the Saipan defenders devolved to Lieutenant General Yoshitsuga Saito, commanding the 43rd Division.

Holland Smith’s invasion plan called for the two Marine divisions to storm ashore along Saipan’s southwest corner. The 2d Division, now commanded by Major General Thomas Watson, would land on the left, while Major General Harry Schmidt’s 4th Marine Division would hit the beach on the right. Rocky, wooded Afetna Point separated the two invasion sites.

Despite … losses in leadership and nearly 2,000 casualties in their ranks, the assaulting Marines wrested a modest slice of shell-blasted Saipan from its defenders.

Marines, crawling under enemy fire, pass each other as they move to their assigned positions. In the background are LVT(A) 4s, their turrets housing short-barreled 75mm howitzers for fire support.

National Archives

Holland Smith had 20,000 men ashore by nightfall, spread unevenly along a beachhead four miles long and maybe a mile deep.

Japanese night counterattacks epitomized the opening weeks of the battle. The most dangerous attack occurred shortly after the landing and included the first armored night assault the Marines had faced.

Some forty Japanese medium tanks roared out of the darkness toward the beach. By coincidence, Lieutenant Colonel “Willie K.” Jones and his 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, defended the threatened sector and bore the brunt of the attack.

Jones as usual had prepared his supporting arms like a maestro. His Marines hit the onrushing tanks with not just the kitchen sink, but the stove and the washing machine. Those dazed tanks that survived the torrent of naval gunfire, artillery, and mortar fire ran into a wall of direct fire from Jones’ bazookas and rifle grenades.

The 4th Division Marines and the 27th Division soldiers broke out of the beachhead and attacked east and south, the Leathernecks reaching Magicienne Bay on the far shore, the GIs capturing Aslito Airfield.

Holland Smith’s assaulting forces had sustained 6,000 casualties. Saipan was already proving to be one of the costlier amphibious battles.

The three divisions now swung northward abreast, the Army’s 27th in the center, flanked by the Marines.

The fighting was particularly fierce in the town of Garapan, midway up the west coast, where the Japanese fought tenaciously from the rubble of destroyed buildings. The devastated city finally fell to the 2d Marine Division on July 3.

The American advance pushed inexorably northward, the Japanese doggedly resisting from caves and camouflaged bunkers. Marines used flamethrowers, tanks, artillery, air strikes, and naval gunfire to snuff out these strong points, one by one.

By July 5, D+20, all of Saipan’s airfields and towns were in U.S. hands. On that evening, after ordering a final banzai attack, General Saito knelt outside his cave and committed suicide. His final order was carried out with bloody consequences early the next morning. Nearly 4,000 Japanese soldiers poured out of the highlands to fall upon surprised elements of the 27th Division in the greatest banzai attack of the war.

Savage fighting swirled in every ravine and cane field throughout the day. The terrifying but futile banzai attack ended the battle for Saipan.

Tinian loomed next, too soon for the weary Marine riflemen.

Nine thousand Japanese troops defended the fiftysquare-mile island, loosely commanded by Colonel Keishi Ogata, Imperial Army.

D-Day at Tinian came on July 24, 1944. The 2d Marine Division executed such a convincing amphibious feint against the Tinian Town beaches that Colonel Ogata was signaling Tokyo of his success in repelling the American landing attempt at the same time that the 4th Marine Division began streaming ashore through his unguarded “attic door”… [tiny landing points near Tinian’s northwest tip].

Incredibly, in view of the difficulties imparted by the tiny “beaches,” [Major General Clifton] Cates had 16,000 Marines ashore, tied in, and on full alert by sunset.

Everything Cates had learned at Guadalcanal indicated his toehold on Tinian would be challenged that night by Ogata’s surprised but veteran troops. Ogata did not disappoint Cates.

Here, as at Tarawa, the Japanese probed the American lines smartly, marking the automatic weapons, finding the seams between regiments.

A hail of mortar fire blanketed Cates’ front lines; Japanese tanks clanked into action; and with a great yell Ogata’s Manchurian veterans swept forward. A battle royal developed throughout the rest of the night. Cates would later state that, “This was the real battle of Tinian.” He would also add, “Here we broke their backs.”

The 2d Marine Division wasted no time pouring ashore the next day.

The two divisions shouldered into line, swept across the first airfield, and attacked south.

Everything clicked. Fire support by field artillery, aircraft, and ships battered and confounded the disorganized Japanese. Enemy mines, booby traps, and snipers took their toll, but the Marine juggernaut proved unstoppable.

When the fighting finally ended on August 1, Schmidt proclaimed the island “secure.” His two divisions of Marines had destroyed Ogata’s mixed forces and captured the invaluable island in nine days at a “steal”: 2,355 casualties.

The battles for Tinian and Guam overlapped each other. While General Schmidt’s V Amphibious Corps ran roughshod over Tinian, General Roy Geiger’s III Amphibious Corps engaged in bitter fighting to liberate Guam.

Compared to Saipan, Guam was three times the size, with bigger mountains, much more jungle, and fewer suitable landing beaches. The island’s convoluted topography favored the defender, and Geiger knew Lieutenant General Takeshi Takashina’s combined force of 13,000 soldiers and 5,000 sailors would provide stiff opposition.

Fortunately Roy Geiger and his Naval counterpart, Admiral [Richard L.] “Close-in” Conolly, got along like sugar and spice.

General Takashina expected the Americans to land at Tumon Bay, site of the principal Japanese landing in 1941, and concentrated his defenses in that area. But Geiger fooled him, divided the landing force to hit two smaller beaches, five miles apart.

Close-in Conolly blasted western Guam for thirteen days, the best bombardment of the entire war.

On W-Day, July 21, 1944, Marc Mitscher’s carrier pilots swarmed low along the coast, spitting fire and dropping bombs. Under this protective shield, the Marine LVTs swept over the barrier reef and onward toward the smoking beaches.

Despite this unprecedented pounding, enough Japanese survived to man their guns and contest the landing.

The fighting on Guam would be characterized by foolish mistakes by senior Japanese officers, offset by spirited and often improvisational tactics on the part of their troops.

Takashina squandered most of his forces in a fierce but ultimately futile counterattack the night of July 25.

Takashina’s all-or-nothing night counterattack inflicted 600 casualties on the American landing force but achieved no lasting penetrations and cost him 3,200 of his best fighters.

By August 4 Marine Aircraft Group 21 began flight operations from Orote Field, reuniting Leatherneck aviators and riflemen in combat for the first time in many months.

Bitter fighting continued as Geiger’s Marines and soldiers drove resolutely northward, but the end was in sight.

A Marine tanker killed General Takashina with his turret-mounted machine gun. Eleven thousand other Japanese lay dead along the ridges and ravines.

On August 10, the twentieth day, Geiger declared Guam secure.

The forcible recapture of Guam cost the III Amphibious Corps 8,000 casualties among Geiger’s Marines and soldiers.

Theater-wide, Admiral Nimitz’s high-rolling offensive thrust had marched 2,500 miles across the Central Pacific in seven months, beginning with the Gilberts. His increasingly potent Fleet Marine Forces had led the way – and suffered the heaviest casualties. Nearly 7,000 Marines died and more than 19,000 fell wounded in forcibly wresting the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas from Imperial Japan. Yet the worst was yet to come.