Read Ebook: Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan by Chapin John C

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This war-time shuffling provided the major building blocks for a new division. The units were originally separated, however, with the 24th Marines and a variety of reinforcing units at Camp Pendleton in California. The rest of the units were at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. This East Coast echelon moved to Pendleton by train and also by ship through the Panama Canal in July and August 1943. All the units were now finally together, and thus the 4th Marine Division was formally activated on 14 August 1943.

After intensive training, it shipped out on 13 January 1944, and in 13 short months made four major assault landings: Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima, suffering over 17,000 casualties. It was awarded two Presidential Unit Citations and a Navy Unit Commendation, and then deactivated 28 November 1945. In February 1966, however, it was reactivated as the lead division in the Marine Corps Reserve, and it furnished essential units to Desert Storm in the liberation of Kuwait.

The 4th Marine Division Patch

In the fall of 1942, the division was directed to assemble on the island of Oahu. MajGen Ralph C. Smith took over command at that time. Then in midsummer 1943, orders came to prepare the 165th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by a battalion of the 105th Infantry and an artillery battalion, for an assault to capture the coral atoll of Makin, in the Gilbert Islands chain. Following a four-day battle there, in November 1943, the division furnished a battalion of the 106th Infantry for the unopposed occupation of Majuro in the Marshall Islands in January 1944.

The final prelude to Saipan for units of the 27th came the next month. Two battalions of the 106th fought at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshalls.

After the division's struggle on Saipan, it went on to the battle for Okinawa in April 1945, and then to the occupation of Japan in September 1945.

The next two days saw the Marine attack resumed all along the irregular front. The 2d Division, after reorganizing, pushed its 6th Marines northeast toward Mount Tipo Pali, its 2d Marines north towards Garapan, and its 8th Marines east into the swamps around Lake Susupe. Direct contact with the 4th Division was finally established.

Close combat was the norm. There were no exceptions for battalion commanders. Lieutenant Colonel Justice M. Chambers, commanding the 3d Battalion, 25th Marines in the 4th Division later described two of his experiences on D+1:

We came to a big bomb crater. The soil had all been thrown up, and around it there were three Marines protected by the dirt. I called up to one of these Marines and asked him what was going on. One of them said that there was an antiaircraft gun right down in front of them. I crawled up within two or three feet of the top of the dirt and raised up on my hands to see what was down there.

Within about 25 to 30 yards, I was looking right into the muzzle of an 88mm antiaircraft/antitank gun. They had swung the damn thing around, and it was pointing right up the hill. I was looking right down its muzzle. I dropped as hard as I could and then the damn gun went off. The shell tore through the far side of the bomb crater, came through the dirt on the near side of the bomb crater where I was. It took the head off the Marine with whom I had been talking. The shell went on back and landed about 20 or 30 feet beyond us where it detonated. Later that same day, he had another close call.

We had, as we had advanced, uncovered various Japanese supply caches. One of these was an ammunition dump.... About 1505 the Japs blew the large dump near where I was standing and caused numerous concussion casualties including myself.... I don't remember a thing about it. The boys tell me that, when the blast went off, I was thrown right up in the air, and I turned a complete flip and then landed on my face.

On the night of D+1, the Japanese again launched a major attack on the 6th Marines, this time with 44 tanks. Major Donovan later described the wild clash: "The battle evolved itself into a madhouse of noise, tracers, and flashing lights. As tanks were hit and set afire, they silhouetted other tanks coming out of the flickering shadows to the front or already on top of the squads." The Marines poured in their fire, now with 2.36-inch rocket launchers, grenade launchers, self-propelled 75mm guns, and their own artillery and tanks adding to the din. When dawn broke, it was over and the shattered hulks of 24 Japanese tanks lay there smoking.

In the 4th Division zone of action, the left regiment, the 23d, also had a difficult time in the Susupe swamp. The 24th and 25th drove inland to the east towards the key objective of Aslito airfield. With a danger looming of overextended lines, Lieutenant General Holland Smith pulled the 165th Infantry out of his reserve and sent it ashore on D+2 to reinforce the 4th Marine Division. This same day, Major General Ralph Smith came ashore to take command of the additional Army units of his 27th Division as they landed.

With the 165th Infantry on its right flank and the 24th Marines to its left, the 25th Marines was poised on the north edge of Aslito airfield late on D+2. Its patrols found the strip was abandoned, but the 165th, assigned to capture it, decided to wait until the next day.

The division had finally approached the O-1 line, except on the left flank where contact with the 2d Division was again broken, this time near Mount Fina Susu.

This same day 17 June, saw a crucial command decision by Admiral Spruance. With the powerful main Japanese fleet now approaching Saipan, he ordered his fast carriers to meet the enemy ships, and that night withdrew his transports and supply ships from their offshore support positions to a safe distance from the Japanese threat.

Major General Harry Schmidt was the leader of the 4th Marine Division in the assaults at Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands and then at Saipan in the Marianas.

The Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua , interspersed with repeated stays in China, were the marks of a diverse overseas career. At home there were staff schools, paymaster duties, and a tour as Assistant Commandant.

Major General Thomas E. Watson, as a brigadier general and commander of Tactical Group-1, built on the 22d Marines, led his men in the conquest of Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in February 1944. For this he was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal, and the 22d Marines was awarded a Navy Unit Commendation.

He took command of the 2d Marine Division in April 1944. In June he directed his men in the conquest of Saipan and then Tinian, receiving a second DSM.

Retirement came in 1950, and he died in March 1966, as a lieutenant general.

With a birth date of 1892, and an enlistment date of 1912, he fully qualified as a member of "the Old Corps." After being commissioned in 1916, he served in a variety of Marine assignments in the Caribbean, China, and the United States.

When the infantrymen ashore woke the next morning, they looked out in amazement at the empty ocean and a wave of uneasy questions raced through their minds: "Where in hell are our ships? What about food and ammunition we've got to have? Will we get back the daytime naval supporting gunfire and also the star shell illumination?" The men in frontline combat had no way of knowing that over 33,000 tons of cargo had already been unloaded when the ships withdrew.

Both Marine divisions went on the attack, while the 105th Infantry joined the 165th on the far right flank, enabling Ralph Smith to put his 27th Division into motion to occupy Aslito airfield and attack along the southern coast.

That same morning, 18 June, the 4th Marine Division attack objective was the seizure of the O-3 line. This would mean reaching the east coast of Saipan and splitting in two the Japanese forces. First, however, the 23d Marines, reinforced by a battalion of the 24th Marines, had to seize the portion of the O-2 line in its zone. This was to be the division's line of departure. The entire division, with three infantry regiments abreast, jumped off at 1040. At 1340 the 25th Marines had reached O-3. The 24th Marines had tank-led Japanese counterattacks on both flanks but was able to reach O-3 before dark.

The 23d Marines, however, was stopped by intense enemy mortar and machine gun fire coming from southeast of Lake Susupe right on the boundary line between the two Marine divisions, making it unclear which division had responsibility for wiping out these enemy positions. At the same time, it was impossible to fire artillery on them for fear of hitting friendly troops. As a result, the 23d Marines suffered heavy casualties. So, by the end of the day, although all of the 4th Marine Division's regiments were in contact, a gap still existed between the two Marine divisions.

The bizarre becomes commonplace in combat. For instance, one of the 23d Marines' 75mm half-tracks fired into a Japanese cave that day, and a dense cloud of noxious fumes came pouring out. A gas alarm was sounded. This meant serious trouble, for all the riflemen had long since jettisoned their burdensome gas masks. Relief flooded through the men as it was established that the fumes were not poisonous and came from picric acid the Japanese had stored in the cave.

Over in the 2d Division's zone, the 8th Marines saw some bitter fighting over Hill 240. A heavily defended coconut grove required saturation fire from the artillery of the 10th Marines before the riflemen could smash their way in and clean out the grove.

The most critical event of 19 June took place at sea, well out of sight of the infantrymen ashore. The opposing carrier task forces clashed in a gigantic air battle. When it was over that night, the Japanese had suffered the catastrophic loss of 330 out of 430 planes they had launched. Exultant U.S. Navy fliers labelled it "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot." With the help of American submarines and additional carrier plane attacks the next day, the Japanese attempt to relieve Saipan by a decisive naval victory was smashed. As an official account summarized the impact ashore, "the eventual doom of the enemy garrison was assured." And the American supply ships were able to return offshore to unload their vital cargoes.

During the four-day span of D+4 to D+7, the 105th Infantry moved slowly along the south coast and then joined the 165th Infantry in sealing off the die-hard Japanese survivors in Nafutan Point, in the southeastern corner of the island. Once the enemy was penned in, the 105th was assigned to eliminate him. The rest of the 27th Division, now including the 106th Infantry, was ordered north to be the Corps reserve.

This period, 19-22 June, marked a total shift in direction for the American troops. Pivoting on the 2d Marines on the far left flank along the western shore, the other Marine regiments swung around from their drive which had reached the east coast to face north, with their right flank on Magicienne Bay.

On 20 June, the 4th Division confronted a key objective. Lieutenant Chapin had a ringside seat:

We had a perfect chance to watch a battalion of the 25th making an attack.... It was in action about a quarter of a mile from us, and the whole panorama was spread out before us. They were assaulting Hill 500, the dominant terrain feature of the whole area, and it was apparent that they were running into a solid wall of Jap fire. But, using timed fire, smoke, and tanks, they finally stormed the top and took it. The use of those supporting arms provided a magnificent spectacle. From our vantage point, we could see the timed fire bursting in cave entrances, and moving down the face of the hill as precisely as if ... it were going down a stepladder. On the lower levels, the flamethrower tanks were spouting their napalm jets upward into other caves. It was quite a sight!

Over in the area of the 2d Division, the 8th Marines wheeled from facing east to attack northward into the foot hills leading to Mount Tapotchau.

The Marine divisions were now facing two major problems. First, their drive north was confronted by General Saito's main line of defense, running west to east across the island. Secondly, the terrain into which the attack had to go was a nightmare of ravines, caves, hills, valleys, and cliffs--all fortified and defended to the death by the Japanese.

June 21 brought a respite for the front line troops: "D+6 was enjoyed by all--for a change! We rested on our positions; caught up on sorely needed sleep; got some water ; and even had a good hot meal. For we got our first 10-in-1 rations. Did they ever taste good to our hungry palates, surfeited as they were with K rations!"

Simultaneously, intensive preparations were made for a coordinated attack by both Marine divisions the next morning. A total of 18 artillery battalions were massed for supporting fire. Combat efficiency was officially rated as "very satisfactory," in spite of a sobering total of 6,165 casualties.

The following day saw the Marines attack all along the line. The 6th Marines overran parts of Mount Tipo Pali, while the 8th Marines worked its painful way into the maze of ridges and gullies that formed the foothills of Mount Tapotchau. On the right, the 24th Marines was forced into the messy business of blasting caves honeycombed along Magicienne Bay. In one of the mortar platoons, a weird encounter took place, as described at the time to this author by the participant, First Lieutenant Joseph J. Cushing:

was bending over one of mortars, checking the lay of it, when felt a tap on my shoulder, and a guy asked , "Hey, Mac, are you a Marine?" turned around and there was a Jap officer standing about a foot from . dropped to the ground, speechless with amazement, and men riddled the Jap from head to toe.

On the left of the 4th Division, the 25th Marines made a major advance of 2,400 yards. The forward lines were now reaching an area where the Kagman Peninsula jutted out to the east. This resulted in a substantially increased frontage that the two Marine divisions could not properly cover. To deal with this, Holland Smith decided to commit his reserve, the 27th Infantry Division, to the center of the line, leaving just one battalion of the 105th Infantry way back in the rear to continue its long drawn-out attempt to eliminate the Japanese pocket on by-passed Nafutan Point.

This day was also marked by the arrival of P-47 Thunderbolts of the 19th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Forces, which landed at Aslito Field. They had been launched from Navy escort carriers. When landed, they were fitted with launching racks for rockets by ground crews who had come in earlier. Later that day, eight planes took off on their first support mission of the Saipan campaign.

While these developments were taking place in the upper echelons, down in the rock-bottom basic life of infantry platoons, the days of relentless combat pressure were exemplified by their impact on the constant duties and high stress levels on a platoon commander:

I made a final inspection of the platoon position and then sacked in--exhausted. When it came my turn to stand watch, it took every last reserve of willpower and strength to get up and go on duty. Then for hours I alternated between fighting off my sleepiness and sweating out the noises and movements that were all around us.

After a while, I spotted a shape, darker than the rest of the surrounding shadows. It was the size of a man's head. I watched it for a long time, nerves on edge, finger on my carbine trigger. Finally it seemed to move. I fired a shot. Nothing happened. It would've been suicide to go over and investigate. In that darkness and jungle my own men would've shot me in a second. So when it came time for my relief, I pointed out the suspicious object to the next man, told him to watch it closely, and collapsed into a dead-tired sleep.

When dawn came on D+8, I was awakened, and the first thing I did was to look over where I'd shot on the night before. There, lying on top of a rock, was the gas mask of one of my men! The owner had been sleeping right beside it. It was a miracle he hadn't been hit. The tremendous strain of the previous night did funny things to your mind....

Complications of a serious nature arose in the execution of the battle plan for 23 June. The battalion of the 105th Infantry still had not cleaned out Nafutan Point; there were semantic and communications differences between the two Smith generals as to orders about who would do what and when; the 106th and 165th Infantry got all tangled up in themselves during a march to take over the center portion of the American lines and were too late to jump off in the attack, thus delaying the attacks of the Marines. When the Army regiments did move out, they found that the rugged terrain in their sector and the determined enemy in camouflaged weapons positions in caves of the steep slope leading up to Mount Tapotchau made forward progress slow and difficult. The 27th Infantry Division was stalled.

The corps commander, Holland Smith, was very displeased with this situation. It had started with the difficulties experienced in getting that division ashore; it was exacerbated by the time it was taking to secure Nafutan Point and the mix-up in orders there; now the advancing Marine divisions were getting infiltration and enfilading fire on their flanks because of the 27th's lack of progress.

Accordingly, Lieutenant General Holland Smith met that afternoon with Major General Sanderford Jarman, USA, who was slated to be the island garrison commander, and asked him to press Major General Ralph Smith for much more aggressive action by the 27th. Jarman later stated:

I talked to General Smith and explained the situation as I saw it and that I felt from reports from the corps commander that his division was not carrying its full share. He immediately replied that such was true; that he was in no way satisfied with what his regimental commanders had done during the day and that he had been with them and had pointed out to them the situation. He further indicated to me that he was going to be present tomorrow, 24 June, with his division when it made its jump-off and he would personally see to it that the division went forward.... He appreciated the situation and thanked me for coming to see him and stated that if he didn't take his division forward tomorrow he should be relieved.

This blunt meeting was followed the next morning by an even blunter message from Holland Smith to Ralph Smith:

Commanding General is highly displeased with the failure of the 27th Division on June twenty-third to launch its attack as ordered at King hour and the lack of offensive action displayed by the division in its failure to advance and seize objective O-5 when opposed by only small arms and mortar fire.

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