Sunday, May 11, 2008
By William R. Trotter
This article is the sixth and final part of a serial feature on the battle for Saipan. The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth installments are still available via the Matrix Games website.
Conclusion: The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot
On the morning of June 18, 1944, events on the island of Saipan, and in the seas around it, were approaching a climax. From every scouting report and map-study session, it looked almost inevitable that the greatest sea battle of the Pacific War was about to unfold in the island-studded waters around the Marianas chain, and the American naval commanders, Admirals Turner and Spruance, had disposed their forces to counter the vast pincers movement (Operation A Go) planned by wily Japanese Admiral Ozawa, as recounted in Part IV.
On land, the commander of all American grounds forces, General Holland M. ("Howling Mad") Smith had committed his floating reserve, the U.S. Army's 27th Division, giving him one full-strength, rested, regimental combat team (the 165th RCT (regarded as the best-trained and best-led component of the 27th , vigorously led by Colonel G. W. Kelly, USA), in addition to the 2nd and 4th Marine divisions already in position and fired-up, despite their lack of sleep, by the resounding defense victory on the night of June 16-17.
The renewed offensive made good progress. By 1400, one battalion of the 165th, driving hard over mostly level ground, had reached the SW corner of Aslito airfield, while another battalion was making respectable progress, against somewhat stiffer resistance, in clearing the Japanese from a commanding ridge between that end of the airfield and Cape Obian. The 2nd Marine Division, facing the undulating heights leading to the summit of Mt. Topachau, , encountered worse terrain and numerous prepared enemy fortifications, but its attacks also made good progress, and by the end of the day, the American enclave north of Beach Green had more than doubled in size.
One reason for the Americans' steady progress was improved communications between the ground forces and the naval gunfire line offshore, which was now able to deliver heavy, accurate fire against any Japanese position that was holding up the advance. Air support, though skillful, was much limited by the fact that Admiral Spruance had withdrawn his big carriers, repositioning them to meet Ozawa's approaching fleets, which in turn meant that the Marines could call on air support only from the small "jeep" carriers still in the vicinity of Saipan. But those sorties were guided expertly toward their targets by the Marines' own spotter planes, the nimble little Stinson "Grasshoppers" (small, agile, wooden airplanes closely resembling the civilian "Piper Cub"), which were assigned to the escort carriers and had ground-support as their only mission. Their fearless pilots, ignoring heavy but mostly inaccurate Japanese ground fire, orbited targets designated by frontline observers below, and marked them with smoke whenever a flight of carrier planes was available for an attack. If no aircraft were available, the Grasshopper pilots sent their fire-mission requests to the Marines' organic artillery, which always responded with accurate, heavy barrages, burning up a prodigious quantity of ammunition. Advancing swiftly behind the rockets and napalm of the carrier planes, or the punishing drumfire barrages of their own 105s, Smith's Marines were able to subdue one enemy strong point after another.
The Japanese Air Force finally made an appearance on the night of June 17-18, flying sorties from airfields on Truk and Yap, and doing only slightly more damage than Saito's abortive tank attack. At 1750, the Truk aircraft struck a transport and support-ship convoy east of Saipan. Six Japanese aircraft attacked; three were shot down; one managed to put a torpedo into LCI-468, killing fifteen crewmen. The ship was taken in tow, but proved so badly damaged that it had to be scuttled. The raid launched from Yap was much more powerful (31 Zekes, 17 Judys, and two of the new "Franceses") and its target was the group of escort carriers maneuvering offshore west of Charan Kanoa. For the size of the attacking force - which managed to evade both American CAP patrols and the lavish but wild barrage of anti-aircraft fire throw up by the ships - the damage inflicted was hardly commensurate with the effort expended: One LST suffered moderate damage from a bomb, but was able to resume operations after a small fire was extinguished, two escort carriers suffered minor damage from near-misses, and a third, the USS Fanshaw, absorbed the single most accurate strike of the raid - a medium-sized bomb that penetrated her flight deck and exploded down in the hangar area, killing eleven sailors and starting a serious fire. The flames were put out before any ordnance detonated, thus saving the ship, but the Fanshaw was too crippled to resume flight operations; after transferring her aircraft to other carriers, she reluctantly steamed out of action and set course for Eniwetok, the closest American base capable of major repairs.
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Upon their return, however, the Japanese pilots jubilantly reported a punishing attack on Task Force 58 (which was far from the scene, getting ready for the showdown with Ozawa), claiming to have sunk three American fleet carriers and inflicting serious damage on a fourth - a considerable inflation of their actual achievement: sinking one small LCI and damaging a single escort carrier badly enough to drive it out of action.
By the morning of June 18, heroic work by Seabee bulldozer crews and expert demolitions by the UDT contingent had so improved the beaches off Agangin Point that LSTs could safely pass through the offshore reefs and drop their ramps directly on smooth, graded sand, thus greatly expediting the landing of the remaining troops of the 27th Division along with a mountain of supplies. All the landing beaches remained under sporadic mortar and artillery fire, however, and supplies piled up in vexing congestion by mid-afternoon, when a rumored Japanese counterattack caused all available U.S. personnel, including the beach masters and their unloading teams, along with the hard-working Army Negro crews who drove the amphibious Dukws, were ordered to stop working on logistics, grab a rifle, and man the front lines. No enemy attack materialized, and valuable time was lost, while incoming landing craft crews just dumped their cargoes on any convenient-looking patch of beach. By nightfall, the beaches were as congested and disorganized as they had ever been.
While the Americans were pouring supplies and reinforcements ashore, General Saito was stoically giving up the notion of driving the invaders back into the sea, and reorganizing his remaining units for a prolonged and stubborn defense.
General Smith did some maneuvering of his own on June 18. He halted the 2nd Division in place, ordering it to resupply, reorganize, and catch its collective breath. Then, with the 2nd acting as pivot, he ordered the 4th Division to drive eastward, all the way to the sea, isolating the enemy forces on Nafutan Point. While its sister units finished landing and getting organized, the 165th RCT resumed its attack on the airfield, only to land its punch in mid-air; the Japanese had pulled out. Except for a scattering of shell craters, the airfield proved to be remarkably good shape. Bulldozers were repairing the runways within two hours, and within two days the field was home to a squadron of Army P-47s and another squadron of the new, deadly P-61 "Black Widow" night-fighters, which for the duration of the campaign, kept the customary enemy nuisance raids from disturbing the ground forces' rest.
Aside from stubborn but small-scale delaying actions, the only significant Japanese response to these moves was a bold, but near-suicidal, attempt by thirteen heavily loaded barges to stage a landing behind the American left flank. This forlorn armada set out from Tanapag Harbor on the night of June 18-19 and halfway to their objective ran straight into a blockade line of LCI gunboats, stationed there precisely to thwart such an attempt. In a brief but spectacular ambush, the barge column sailed right into the narrow end of a massive cone of 20mm and 40mm tracer fire that lashed the water into a boiling froth. Fully illuminated by exploding ammunition, the handful of barges that survived the first minutes of the firefight tried to flee, but were quickly hunted down and blown to pieces by jubilant naval gunners; aside from the odd random bullet hole in their hulls, the LCIs suffered neither damage nor casualties during this massacre.
On the following day, June 19, the now-combined elements of the 27th Division finished clearing all the ground between the airfield and Magicienne Bay, while the Marine 4th Division successfully completed its pivot maneuver, overrunning a high plateau on the southern approaches to Mt. Topachau. Among the abandoned enemy fortifications they seized was the blockhouse that had formerly been General Saito's headquarters.
By nightfall on the 19th, the Americans not only had a strong, cohesive line running from one side of Saipan to the other, but much of the beach congestion had been cleared up and the logistics were now in place to support a full-scale renewed attack designed to secure the rest of the island within a week. It appeared to General Smith, from the increasingly ragged quality of Japanese resistance, that victory was now not only a foregone conclusion, but one easily within his grasp.
Events, however, would prove that estimate to be somewhat optimistic…
