Officer Cynical asked to do a guest post today, in memory of those who gave all in one of the most vicious battles of World War II. Take it away, Officer!
On June 6, 1944 the largest amphibious invasion in history took place in Normandy. Lost in its shadow are equally important events that happened at the same time on the other side of the world.
Today, June 15, 2012, marks the 68th anniversary of the U.S. Marine assault on Saipan.
On June 5, 1944, the same day the allied invasion ships set off across the English Channel for Normandy, another amphibious force left Pearl Harbor to carry out a mission of equal importance in the Pacific. It's almost-forgotten today, but the effects were tremendous. As one Japanese admiral commented, ""Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan."
Saipan was an important objective, both to cut off Japanese supply lines and to provide an airbase from which bombers could reach the Japanese home islands.
At 8:00 a.m., 8,000 Marines came ashore against 31,000 Japanese defenders. Many Marines later stated it was the most savagely opposed amphibious landing of the Pacific war.
Japanese artillery (pre-aimed at the invasion beach), along with machine-gun and sniper fire, made the landing murderous. You can see in the photos below the desperation of the men who have just hit the beach.
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| Men & machinery coming ashore. |
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| Crawling to duck snipers |
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| The Marines at the center and far left have just been hit by enemy fire. |
Many enemy artillary positions were neutralized by gunfire from American warships, which was guided by Navajo code-talkers who'd gone ashore with the troops.
The morning after the landing, the Marines awoke to find every support vessel except a hospital ship had left. The Japanese Imperial Navy had counterattacked the U.S. Task Force near Saipan in an attempt to reinforce and resupply the defenders. The result was the naval/air Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the decisive allied air victory called The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
Ultimately, the combined American forces of Marine and Army units numbered about 70,000 men. After three weeks, the Japanese staged a last-ditch banzai charge of about 4,000 soldiers, including their wounded and conscripted civilians. Some had no firearms, but carried sticks with knives tied to the ends and other crude weapons.
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| Shaking out a shoe, sitting on an unexploded shell from a battleship. |
In the end, 13,790 American (19%) were killed or wounded. 29,000 Japanese (94%) were killed; only 920 prisoners were taken. Some 20,000 of the 25,000 civilians living on Saipan also died, almost all by suicide, either by jumping from cliffs (after throwing their children off) or by blowing themselves up with grenades. They had been convinced by the Japanese military that suicide was preferable to capture by the Americans.
The nightmare of Saipan shows on the face of this Marine:
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| The "thousand-yard-stare" |
