Posted on Jul 7, 2017
Aftermath of Japanese Banzai charge on Saipan, Mariana Islands during WWII HD Stock Footage
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The last Samurai: Sakae Ōba and the largest banzai charge of the war in the Pacific 大場 栄
By Pierre Kosmidis
Thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the Battle of Saipan that raged on the island from June 15 to July 9, 1944.
Sakae Oba, a captain in the 18th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army, knnown to the U.S. Troops who conquered Saipan as “the Fox”, gathered together and led 46 soldiers in the jungle of Saipan for 16 months after U.S. forces officially declared Saipan secured from the enemy.
During that time, Oba and his men also watched over an additional 160 Japanese civilians who had retreated into the jungle, teaching them survival skills and preventing their capture — while also conducting guerrilla-type attacks and confounding the 45,000-strong U.S. force still stationed on Saipan after hostilities were declared over.
Located in the Matanza district of Saipan is the site of the Battle of Saipan’s infamous June 7, 1944, Banzai Charge — or gyokusai (honorable suicide) as Japan’s wartime Cabinet Information Bureau called it.
After 15 hours of intense and unrelenting hand to hand combat, almost 4,300 Japanese soldiers were dead. Allied forces declared the island secured on 9 July 1944.
Oba took part in that suicidal attack, but survived along with 46 other soldiers who he led into the jungle, having convinced them that relief was on its way.
Oba insisted that continuing to fight for their country was more honorable than so-called honorable suicide, but because of Oba’s decision to fight on, many labeled him a coward after the war.
By 30 September 1944, the Japanese Army made an official presumption of death for all personnel of unknown status and they were declared killed in action. That included Captain Ōba, and he was awarded a posthumous” promotion to Major.
Upon his return to Japan, Oba was ceremonially stripped of his “posthumous” promotion to major — which had been awarded in the belief he had died during the charge.
Though Oba didn’t know at the time he decided to carry on fighting, the relief that he’d promised his men was on its way would never arrive.
Instead, Japanese cargo ships dispatched with a fleet of warships from the Philippines were intercepted by the U.S. 3rd and 7th fleets off the Philippines, resulting in their decimation in October 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf — considered to be the greatest sea battle of World War II.
Oba, however, refused to believe reports of that maritime defeat — or later, even of Japan’s surrender in August 1945. And he dismissed photographs dropped by U.S. aircraft of devastated Hiroshima after it was atom-bombed on Aug. 6, 1945, simply as doctored fakes. The war, he believed, was still there to be won.
When medical and other supplies ran out, he would undertake night raids on U.S. camps, at the same time smuggling out POWs to gather information and cleverly replacing them with the same number of his own men.
That’s what earned him his nickname, “Fox”. He was so canny that even when the American soldiers set up an outside cinema in a field near the camp, they never knew that, among the trees behind them, Oba was taking a seat in the back row.
In September 1944, the Marines began conducting patrols in the island’s interior, searching for survivors who were raiding their camp for supplies. These patrols sometimes encountered Japanese soldiers or civilians, and when they were captured, they were interrogated and sent to an appropriate prison camp. It was during these interrogations that the Marines learned of Ōba’s name.
At the peak of the hunt for Ōba, the Marine commander devised a plan in which his men would line up across the width of the island, about two meters separating one Marine from the next, and they were to march from the south end of the island to the north.
The commander felt that Ōba and his men would have to fight, surrender, or be driven north and eventually captured. Due to this dragnet, the elderly and infirm civilians volunteered to surrender.
Although some of the soldiers wanted to fight, Captain Ōba asserted that their primary concerns were to protect the civilians and to stay alive to continue the war. As the line of Marines approached the area, most of the remaining soldiers and civilians climbed up to a concealed mountain clearing, while others stood on narrow ledges and clung to the side of the mountain.
They maintained their precarious positions for most of the day, as the Marines crossed through the area, ransacking huts and gardens when they found them. In some places, the Japanese on the ledges were less than 6.1 m above the heads of the Marines. The Marines’ search proved futile, and eventually led to the chagrined commander’s reassignment.
Captain Ōba and his men held out on the island for 512 days, or about 16 months. On 27 November 1945, former Major General Umahachi Amō, commander of the 9th Independent Mixed Brigade during the Battle of Saipan, was able to draw out some of the Japanese in hiding by singing the anthem of the Japanese infantry branch.
Amō was then able to present documents from the defunct Imperial General Headquarters to Captain Ōba ordering him and his men to surrender themselves to the Americans.
On 1 December 1945, three months after the official surrender of Japan, the Japanese soldiers gathered once more on Mt. Tapochau and sang a song of departure to the spirits of the war dead.
Ōba then led his people out of the jungle and they presented themselves to the Marines of the 18th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Company. With great formality and commensurate dignity, Captain Ōba surrendered his sword to Lieutenant Colonel Howard G. Kirgis, and his men surrendered their arms and colors.
They were the last organized resistance of Japanese forces on Saipan.
The film “Taiheiyo no Kiseki — Fokkusu to Yobareta Otoko” (“Miracle of the Pacific — the Man they called Fox.”), official English title of “Oba: The Last Samurai” follows the 1986 book by U.S. war veteran Don Jones, on which the film is based.
Jones was among the U.S. Marines on the receiving end of Oba and his squad’s nighttime forays, and his curiosity about how the Japanese junior officer had eluded U.S. attempts to flush him out of Saipan’s jungles led him to track down his former foe some 35 years after he had finally surrendered. In the process, Jones returned Oba’s sword.
http://www.ww2wrecks.com/portfolio/the-last-samurai-sakae-oba-and-the-largest-banzai-charge-of-the-war-in-the-pacific-%E5%A4%A7%E5%A0%B4-%E6%A0%84/
http://wikimapia.org/1628895/WWII-s-Largest-Banzai-Charge
http://history.info/on-this-day/1944-japans-largest-banzai-charge-in-world-war-ii/
@ col mikel COL Mikel J. Burroughs @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen C. @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen F. @ ltc frank LTC (Join to see) @ ltc john LTC John Mohor @ maj william Maj William W. "Bill" Price @ maj stephen LTC (Join to see) @ capt marty Maj Marty Hogan @ smsgt doc SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas @ tsgt joe TSgt Joe C. @ sra christopher SrA Christopher Wright @ msg andrew MSG Andrew White @ ssg pete SSG Pete Fleming @ sgt david SGT (Join to see) @ sgt david SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth @ sp5 mark SP5 Mark Kuzinski @ sp5 robert SP5 Robert Ruck SCPO Morris Ramsey Alan K. Cynthia Croft
By Pierre Kosmidis
Thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the Battle of Saipan that raged on the island from June 15 to July 9, 1944.
Sakae Oba, a captain in the 18th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army, knnown to the U.S. Troops who conquered Saipan as “the Fox”, gathered together and led 46 soldiers in the jungle of Saipan for 16 months after U.S. forces officially declared Saipan secured from the enemy.
During that time, Oba and his men also watched over an additional 160 Japanese civilians who had retreated into the jungle, teaching them survival skills and preventing their capture — while also conducting guerrilla-type attacks and confounding the 45,000-strong U.S. force still stationed on Saipan after hostilities were declared over.
Located in the Matanza district of Saipan is the site of the Battle of Saipan’s infamous June 7, 1944, Banzai Charge — or gyokusai (honorable suicide) as Japan’s wartime Cabinet Information Bureau called it.
After 15 hours of intense and unrelenting hand to hand combat, almost 4,300 Japanese soldiers were dead. Allied forces declared the island secured on 9 July 1944.
Oba took part in that suicidal attack, but survived along with 46 other soldiers who he led into the jungle, having convinced them that relief was on its way.
Oba insisted that continuing to fight for their country was more honorable than so-called honorable suicide, but because of Oba’s decision to fight on, many labeled him a coward after the war.
By 30 September 1944, the Japanese Army made an official presumption of death for all personnel of unknown status and they were declared killed in action. That included Captain Ōba, and he was awarded a posthumous” promotion to Major.
Upon his return to Japan, Oba was ceremonially stripped of his “posthumous” promotion to major — which had been awarded in the belief he had died during the charge.
Though Oba didn’t know at the time he decided to carry on fighting, the relief that he’d promised his men was on its way would never arrive.
Instead, Japanese cargo ships dispatched with a fleet of warships from the Philippines were intercepted by the U.S. 3rd and 7th fleets off the Philippines, resulting in their decimation in October 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf — considered to be the greatest sea battle of World War II.
Oba, however, refused to believe reports of that maritime defeat — or later, even of Japan’s surrender in August 1945. And he dismissed photographs dropped by U.S. aircraft of devastated Hiroshima after it was atom-bombed on Aug. 6, 1945, simply as doctored fakes. The war, he believed, was still there to be won.
When medical and other supplies ran out, he would undertake night raids on U.S. camps, at the same time smuggling out POWs to gather information and cleverly replacing them with the same number of his own men.
That’s what earned him his nickname, “Fox”. He was so canny that even when the American soldiers set up an outside cinema in a field near the camp, they never knew that, among the trees behind them, Oba was taking a seat in the back row.
In September 1944, the Marines began conducting patrols in the island’s interior, searching for survivors who were raiding their camp for supplies. These patrols sometimes encountered Japanese soldiers or civilians, and when they were captured, they were interrogated and sent to an appropriate prison camp. It was during these interrogations that the Marines learned of Ōba’s name.
At the peak of the hunt for Ōba, the Marine commander devised a plan in which his men would line up across the width of the island, about two meters separating one Marine from the next, and they were to march from the south end of the island to the north.
The commander felt that Ōba and his men would have to fight, surrender, or be driven north and eventually captured. Due to this dragnet, the elderly and infirm civilians volunteered to surrender.
Although some of the soldiers wanted to fight, Captain Ōba asserted that their primary concerns were to protect the civilians and to stay alive to continue the war. As the line of Marines approached the area, most of the remaining soldiers and civilians climbed up to a concealed mountain clearing, while others stood on narrow ledges and clung to the side of the mountain.
They maintained their precarious positions for most of the day, as the Marines crossed through the area, ransacking huts and gardens when they found them. In some places, the Japanese on the ledges were less than 6.1 m above the heads of the Marines. The Marines’ search proved futile, and eventually led to the chagrined commander’s reassignment.
Captain Ōba and his men held out on the island for 512 days, or about 16 months. On 27 November 1945, former Major General Umahachi Amō, commander of the 9th Independent Mixed Brigade during the Battle of Saipan, was able to draw out some of the Japanese in hiding by singing the anthem of the Japanese infantry branch.
Amō was then able to present documents from the defunct Imperial General Headquarters to Captain Ōba ordering him and his men to surrender themselves to the Americans.
On 1 December 1945, three months after the official surrender of Japan, the Japanese soldiers gathered once more on Mt. Tapochau and sang a song of departure to the spirits of the war dead.
Ōba then led his people out of the jungle and they presented themselves to the Marines of the 18th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Company. With great formality and commensurate dignity, Captain Ōba surrendered his sword to Lieutenant Colonel Howard G. Kirgis, and his men surrendered their arms and colors.
They were the last organized resistance of Japanese forces on Saipan.
The film “Taiheiyo no Kiseki — Fokkusu to Yobareta Otoko” (“Miracle of the Pacific — the Man they called Fox.”), official English title of “Oba: The Last Samurai” follows the 1986 book by U.S. war veteran Don Jones, on which the film is based.
Jones was among the U.S. Marines on the receiving end of Oba and his squad’s nighttime forays, and his curiosity about how the Japanese junior officer had eluded U.S. attempts to flush him out of Saipan’s jungles led him to track down his former foe some 35 years after he had finally surrendered. In the process, Jones returned Oba’s sword.
http://www.ww2wrecks.com/portfolio/the-last-samurai-sakae-oba-and-the-largest-banzai-charge-of-the-war-in-the-pacific-%E5%A4%A7%E5%A0%B4-%E6%A0%84/
http://wikimapia.org/1628895/WWII-s-Largest-Banzai-Charge
http://history.info/on-this-day/1944-japans-largest-banzai-charge-in-world-war-ii/
@ col mikel COL Mikel J. Burroughs @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen C. @ ltc stephen LTC Stephen F. @ ltc frank LTC (Join to see) @ ltc john LTC John Mohor @ maj william Maj William W. "Bill" Price @ maj stephen LTC (Join to see) @ capt marty Maj Marty Hogan @ smsgt doc SMSgt Minister Gerald A. "Doc" Thomas @ tsgt joe TSgt Joe C. @ sra christopher SrA Christopher Wright @ msg andrew MSG Andrew White @ ssg pete SSG Pete Fleming @ sgt david SGT (Join to see) @ sgt david SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth @ sp5 mark SP5 Mark Kuzinski @ sp5 robert SP5 Robert Ruck SCPO Morris Ramsey Alan K. Cynthia Croft
WWII World War Two
Military History
Infantry
Honor
Saipan
Posted >1 y ago
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I do remember a Japanese soldier surrendering in the early seventies. This is a remarkable story.
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Battle of Saipan: Full Battle of Saipan Documentary
Battle of Saipan: Full Battle of Saipan Documentary Check out the most exciting documentary about the Battle of Saipan. Take an in depth look into the larges...
Thanks for sharing the stark landscape of the Battle of Saipan after the final Japanese Banzai charge as firepower was brought to bear on that suicidal assault SGT John " Mac " McConnell
The ferocity of the Japanese response when the USA an island group that would permit us to launch land-based bombing attacks on the Japanese homeland.
About 1,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide by leaping off the cliffs rather than surrender to the USA.
"Four Marines received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Saipan. Each lost his life in the action for which he was honored. The four were: Gunnery Sergeant Robert H. McCard, 4th Tank Battalion; Sergeant Grant F. Timmerman, 2nd Tank Battalion; Private First Class Harold G. Agerholm, 4th Battalion, 10th Marines, 2nd Marine Division; Private First Class Harold G. Epperson, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division. Gunnery Sergeant McCard, a native of Syracuse, NY, single-handedly covered the escape of his crew from a disabled tank. He faced the fire of a battery of anti-tank guns with hand grenades and a machine gun. Sergeant Timmerman, who came to the Marine Corps from Americus, KS, threw himself across an open tank hatch to protect his crew from an enemy grenade. PFC Agerholm disregarded heavy enemy fire and personally evacuated 45 wounded Marines during an enemy attack on an artillery position. Agerholm, a native of Racine, WI, was killed by a sniper as he tried to help two other wounded men. PFC Epperson of Akron, OH, threw himself on a hand grenade, which landed in his machine gun position during an enemy attack. His action saved the rest of his gun crew."
Images: 1944-06 Japanese Defense Sectors on Saipan Map; 1944-06 Saipan Marines take cover behind medium tank; Japanese troops were buried in mass graves, for purely sanitary reasons. The locations of these graves were unknown for many years; recently recovery teams from Tokyo have excavated several mass graves and returned remains to Japan; 1944-07 Saipan civilians commit suicide rather than surrendering to American troops.
The Battle of Saipan
Plans to launch an offensive against the Japanese in the islands of the Pacific were initiated in 1943 at the Quadrant Conference held in Quebec. President Franklin Roosevelt received the proposal that the Allied effort in the Pacific should be directed first toward the Gilbert Islands, then the Marshalls, followed by Wake, the Eastern Carolines, and finally the Marianas. It was at Saipan that American military planners were presented with the problem of how to cope with a dense civilian population, the first to be encountered in the Pacific war. American forces were to be under the overall command of Admiral Chester Nimitz.
The American drive across the Pacific would be two-pronged. While Nimitz fought his way across the central Pacific, General MacArthur would advance across the southwest Pacific to the Philippines. The islands of the central Pacific either succumbed one by one under the sheer weight of American forces or were bombed, neutralized and bypassed. With their supply lines cut, the defenders of by-passed islands were left to starve. After the fall of the Marshall islands, no other island in the central Pacific would be invaded by American ground forces until the American armada reached the waters off the Marianas and the island of Saipan.
American war strategy in the western Pacific was developed around the premise that Japan would never surrender and that the nation would fight to the last man, woman, and child, particularly if the home islands were invaded. It was anticipated that such an invasion, if it were to occur, would result in the loss of one million American lives. In planning for this eventuality, air bases in the Marianas were essential in order to accommodate the new B-29 Superfortress, a U.S. bomber that was just beginning to be mass-produced in early 1944 and which had a flying range equal to the distance from Saipan, Tinian and Guam to Japan and back. The B-29's normal range was 2,850 miles at 358 m.p.h. with a 20,000 ton carrying capacity at 32,000 feet. The capture of the island of Saipan thus became crucial in the preparations for this massive invasion.
The assault on Saipan began on June 15, 1944, almost a week after the invasion of Europe. An armada of 535 ships carrying 127,570 U. S. military personnel (two-thirds of whom were Marines of the 2nd and 4th Divisions) converged on the island. The ships of the invasion force carried 40,000 different items to support the assault - everything from toilet paper to government-issue coffins. A single supply ship carried enough food to feed 90,000 troops for one month. Navy tankers transported the gigantic quantity of petroleum products required to support the invasion. Aircraft alone consumed over 8 million gallons of aviation fuel during the battle, while the aircraft carriers burned more than 4 million barrels of fuel.
Seven American battleships and 11 destroyers shelled Saipan and Tinian for 2 days before the landings, firing 15,000 16-inch and 5-inch shells at the islands along with 165,000 other shells of other caliber. To even begin to comprehend the magnitude of this onslaught, one needs to realize that a single 16-inch round weighs slightly more than a Volkswagen Beetle, besides being packed with high explosives. On the second day of the bombardment, this force was joined by 8 more battleships, 6 heavy cruisers and 5 light cruisers. The islands were ringed by American warships with their guns blazing. Shells rained down on the island, its villages, inhabitants, and defenders, gouging huge craters in the sand and coral. The earth trembled under the tremendous explosions of naval bombardment and simultaneous air attacks.
The main invasion force landed along 4 miles of beach at Chalan Kanoa. Twenty-eight U. S. tanks were destroyed the first day alone. The Japanese positioned colored flags in the lagoon to mark the range of the landing force and to register their howitzers on the invaders from locations behind Mount Fina Susu, and their shell fire rained down on the advancing American force every 15 seconds in a deadly cauldron of exploding steel. By nightfall of the first day, the Second Marine Division had sustained 2,000 casualties. The fighting continued until July 9th, when organized resistance on Saipan ceased. When the fighting ended, American losses on Saipan were double those suffered on Guadalcanal. Of the 71,034 U. S. troops landed on Saipan, 3,100 were killed, 13,100 wounded or missing in action. Out of the 31,629 Japanese on Saipan, approximately 29,500 died as a result of the fighting, and only 2,100 prisoners survived. Fighting between the Japanese and the Americans was by no means completely mechanized; while ships, aircraft, artillery, and tanks inflicted the largest amount of damage to the combatants, a great deal of the fighting was hand-to-hand. Besides machine guns, flame throwers, rifles, and pistols, deadly skirmishes were fought with bayonets, swords, bamboo spears, clubs, stones and fists.
The ratio of battle dead was 9.5:1 during the 24 days of fighting. Place names given the rugged Saipan terrain such as Death Valley, Purple Heart Ridge and Harakiri Gulch testified to the bitter fighting. One of the most lamentable events of the battle for Saipan involved the mass suicide of hundreds of families, many of whom jumped to their deaths from the high cliffs at the island's northernmost point. This tragic event could not be stopped, despite efforts by Americans and indigenous Saipanese using loudspeakers to try to convince the Japanese that surrender would be shameless and harmless.
Saipan provided the United States military with its first opportunity to learn about military occupation of enemy territory with a Japanese civilian population. Civilians encountered during the period of the battle and afterward, while emergency conditions still prevailed, were placed in secure camps to keep them out of the way of the fighting. Thus assembled, the U.S. military could better meet their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Schools were established as soon as conditions permitted. In September, 1945, the camps housed 13,954 Japanese, 1,411 Koreans, 2,966 Chamorros and 1,025 Carolinians. Contained within a two square mile area near Lake Susupe, the compounds were primitive and only the bare necessities were available. Weathered boards, tattered tents and battered tin sheets from the island's bombed-out sugar refinery provided the only shelter from the weather. Each hut (han) accommodated from 20 to 55 people. After the fighting, families were released from Camp Susupe during the day to cultivate vegetables, as food was scarce. Food production was increased from 79,469 pounds of produce in September, 1944 to 286,029 pounds in September, 1945. The camp also had a makeshift Buddhist temple, where Shinto religious ceremonies were held. Release from these camps is celebrated as "Liberation Day" by inhabitants of Saipan to this day on the 4th of July. The Japanese on Saipan had a high birth rate - about 300 babies per 1,000 women aged 15 to 45 - and there were many orphans in the camps who were attended and raised by Japanese nurses. Most of these were the children of Japanese parents who had killed themselves during the mass suicide.
After the capture of Saipan, the fighting continued elsewhere in the Pacific for another 13 months. Camps on Tinian were constructed to house 50,000 U.S. troops and 1.2 million pounds of crops were produced, all of which were consumed on the island. On August 6, 1945, an American Superfortress flying from Tinian dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, hastening Japan's capitulation. The war formally ended with Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945. The final surrender on the island of Saipan did not take place, however, until December 1, 1945, when Japanese Army Captain Sakeo Oba, who had continued to hold out in the mountains with 46 men as a guerrilla force, surrendered his Samurai sword to Major Herman Lewis and Colonel Scott, USMC.
About 90 percent of the civilian population on Saipan survived the war. These included Koreans, Okinawans, and Japanese who were subsequently repatriated to their respective homelands. As recorded on December 31, 1949, the indigenous population of Saipan was 6,225. In 1937 23,658 persons had inhabited Saipan (4,145 were indigenous).
Today, what little World War Two equipment remains after being collected and sold for scrap after the war is protected by law because of its historical value. Lying below the surface of a lagoon once congested with landing craft and ships of all type are the coral encrusted tools of war. Rifles, helmets, bullets, tanks, ships and landing craft litter the sandy lagoon floor as if in an underwater time capsule in silent testimony to one of the last battles fought in a pre-nuclear age. More than fifty years after the invasion, unexploded live ordnance still poses a very real danger to the unwary diver or souvenir hunter."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0egjzebywg
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Greg Henning LTC Ivan Raiklin, Esq. Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown CW5 (Join to see) SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT MSG Andrew White SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx TSgt Joe C. SrA Christopher Wright Cpl Joshua Caldwell LTC (Join to see) LTC Wayne Brandon LTC Wayne Brandon
The ferocity of the Japanese response when the USA an island group that would permit us to launch land-based bombing attacks on the Japanese homeland.
About 1,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide by leaping off the cliffs rather than surrender to the USA.
"Four Marines received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Saipan. Each lost his life in the action for which he was honored. The four were: Gunnery Sergeant Robert H. McCard, 4th Tank Battalion; Sergeant Grant F. Timmerman, 2nd Tank Battalion; Private First Class Harold G. Agerholm, 4th Battalion, 10th Marines, 2nd Marine Division; Private First Class Harold G. Epperson, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division. Gunnery Sergeant McCard, a native of Syracuse, NY, single-handedly covered the escape of his crew from a disabled tank. He faced the fire of a battery of anti-tank guns with hand grenades and a machine gun. Sergeant Timmerman, who came to the Marine Corps from Americus, KS, threw himself across an open tank hatch to protect his crew from an enemy grenade. PFC Agerholm disregarded heavy enemy fire and personally evacuated 45 wounded Marines during an enemy attack on an artillery position. Agerholm, a native of Racine, WI, was killed by a sniper as he tried to help two other wounded men. PFC Epperson of Akron, OH, threw himself on a hand grenade, which landed in his machine gun position during an enemy attack. His action saved the rest of his gun crew."
Images: 1944-06 Japanese Defense Sectors on Saipan Map; 1944-06 Saipan Marines take cover behind medium tank; Japanese troops were buried in mass graves, for purely sanitary reasons. The locations of these graves were unknown for many years; recently recovery teams from Tokyo have excavated several mass graves and returned remains to Japan; 1944-07 Saipan civilians commit suicide rather than surrendering to American troops.
The Battle of Saipan
Plans to launch an offensive against the Japanese in the islands of the Pacific were initiated in 1943 at the Quadrant Conference held in Quebec. President Franklin Roosevelt received the proposal that the Allied effort in the Pacific should be directed first toward the Gilbert Islands, then the Marshalls, followed by Wake, the Eastern Carolines, and finally the Marianas. It was at Saipan that American military planners were presented with the problem of how to cope with a dense civilian population, the first to be encountered in the Pacific war. American forces were to be under the overall command of Admiral Chester Nimitz.
The American drive across the Pacific would be two-pronged. While Nimitz fought his way across the central Pacific, General MacArthur would advance across the southwest Pacific to the Philippines. The islands of the central Pacific either succumbed one by one under the sheer weight of American forces or were bombed, neutralized and bypassed. With their supply lines cut, the defenders of by-passed islands were left to starve. After the fall of the Marshall islands, no other island in the central Pacific would be invaded by American ground forces until the American armada reached the waters off the Marianas and the island of Saipan.
American war strategy in the western Pacific was developed around the premise that Japan would never surrender and that the nation would fight to the last man, woman, and child, particularly if the home islands were invaded. It was anticipated that such an invasion, if it were to occur, would result in the loss of one million American lives. In planning for this eventuality, air bases in the Marianas were essential in order to accommodate the new B-29 Superfortress, a U.S. bomber that was just beginning to be mass-produced in early 1944 and which had a flying range equal to the distance from Saipan, Tinian and Guam to Japan and back. The B-29's normal range was 2,850 miles at 358 m.p.h. with a 20,000 ton carrying capacity at 32,000 feet. The capture of the island of Saipan thus became crucial in the preparations for this massive invasion.
The assault on Saipan began on June 15, 1944, almost a week after the invasion of Europe. An armada of 535 ships carrying 127,570 U. S. military personnel (two-thirds of whom were Marines of the 2nd and 4th Divisions) converged on the island. The ships of the invasion force carried 40,000 different items to support the assault - everything from toilet paper to government-issue coffins. A single supply ship carried enough food to feed 90,000 troops for one month. Navy tankers transported the gigantic quantity of petroleum products required to support the invasion. Aircraft alone consumed over 8 million gallons of aviation fuel during the battle, while the aircraft carriers burned more than 4 million barrels of fuel.
Seven American battleships and 11 destroyers shelled Saipan and Tinian for 2 days before the landings, firing 15,000 16-inch and 5-inch shells at the islands along with 165,000 other shells of other caliber. To even begin to comprehend the magnitude of this onslaught, one needs to realize that a single 16-inch round weighs slightly more than a Volkswagen Beetle, besides being packed with high explosives. On the second day of the bombardment, this force was joined by 8 more battleships, 6 heavy cruisers and 5 light cruisers. The islands were ringed by American warships with their guns blazing. Shells rained down on the island, its villages, inhabitants, and defenders, gouging huge craters in the sand and coral. The earth trembled under the tremendous explosions of naval bombardment and simultaneous air attacks.
The main invasion force landed along 4 miles of beach at Chalan Kanoa. Twenty-eight U. S. tanks were destroyed the first day alone. The Japanese positioned colored flags in the lagoon to mark the range of the landing force and to register their howitzers on the invaders from locations behind Mount Fina Susu, and their shell fire rained down on the advancing American force every 15 seconds in a deadly cauldron of exploding steel. By nightfall of the first day, the Second Marine Division had sustained 2,000 casualties. The fighting continued until July 9th, when organized resistance on Saipan ceased. When the fighting ended, American losses on Saipan were double those suffered on Guadalcanal. Of the 71,034 U. S. troops landed on Saipan, 3,100 were killed, 13,100 wounded or missing in action. Out of the 31,629 Japanese on Saipan, approximately 29,500 died as a result of the fighting, and only 2,100 prisoners survived. Fighting between the Japanese and the Americans was by no means completely mechanized; while ships, aircraft, artillery, and tanks inflicted the largest amount of damage to the combatants, a great deal of the fighting was hand-to-hand. Besides machine guns, flame throwers, rifles, and pistols, deadly skirmishes were fought with bayonets, swords, bamboo spears, clubs, stones and fists.
The ratio of battle dead was 9.5:1 during the 24 days of fighting. Place names given the rugged Saipan terrain such as Death Valley, Purple Heart Ridge and Harakiri Gulch testified to the bitter fighting. One of the most lamentable events of the battle for Saipan involved the mass suicide of hundreds of families, many of whom jumped to their deaths from the high cliffs at the island's northernmost point. This tragic event could not be stopped, despite efforts by Americans and indigenous Saipanese using loudspeakers to try to convince the Japanese that surrender would be shameless and harmless.
Saipan provided the United States military with its first opportunity to learn about military occupation of enemy territory with a Japanese civilian population. Civilians encountered during the period of the battle and afterward, while emergency conditions still prevailed, were placed in secure camps to keep them out of the way of the fighting. Thus assembled, the U.S. military could better meet their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Schools were established as soon as conditions permitted. In September, 1945, the camps housed 13,954 Japanese, 1,411 Koreans, 2,966 Chamorros and 1,025 Carolinians. Contained within a two square mile area near Lake Susupe, the compounds were primitive and only the bare necessities were available. Weathered boards, tattered tents and battered tin sheets from the island's bombed-out sugar refinery provided the only shelter from the weather. Each hut (han) accommodated from 20 to 55 people. After the fighting, families were released from Camp Susupe during the day to cultivate vegetables, as food was scarce. Food production was increased from 79,469 pounds of produce in September, 1944 to 286,029 pounds in September, 1945. The camp also had a makeshift Buddhist temple, where Shinto religious ceremonies were held. Release from these camps is celebrated as "Liberation Day" by inhabitants of Saipan to this day on the 4th of July. The Japanese on Saipan had a high birth rate - about 300 babies per 1,000 women aged 15 to 45 - and there were many orphans in the camps who were attended and raised by Japanese nurses. Most of these were the children of Japanese parents who had killed themselves during the mass suicide.
After the capture of Saipan, the fighting continued elsewhere in the Pacific for another 13 months. Camps on Tinian were constructed to house 50,000 U.S. troops and 1.2 million pounds of crops were produced, all of which were consumed on the island. On August 6, 1945, an American Superfortress flying from Tinian dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, hastening Japan's capitulation. The war formally ended with Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945. The final surrender on the island of Saipan did not take place, however, until December 1, 1945, when Japanese Army Captain Sakeo Oba, who had continued to hold out in the mountains with 46 men as a guerrilla force, surrendered his Samurai sword to Major Herman Lewis and Colonel Scott, USMC.
About 90 percent of the civilian population on Saipan survived the war. These included Koreans, Okinawans, and Japanese who were subsequently repatriated to their respective homelands. As recorded on December 31, 1949, the indigenous population of Saipan was 6,225. In 1937 23,658 persons had inhabited Saipan (4,145 were indigenous).
Today, what little World War Two equipment remains after being collected and sold for scrap after the war is protected by law because of its historical value. Lying below the surface of a lagoon once congested with landing craft and ships of all type are the coral encrusted tools of war. Rifles, helmets, bullets, tanks, ships and landing craft litter the sandy lagoon floor as if in an underwater time capsule in silent testimony to one of the last battles fought in a pre-nuclear age. More than fifty years after the invasion, unexploded live ordnance still poses a very real danger to the unwary diver or souvenir hunter."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0egjzebywg
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Greg Henning LTC Ivan Raiklin, Esq. Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown CW5 (Join to see) SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT MSG Andrew White SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx TSgt Joe C. SrA Christopher Wright Cpl Joshua Caldwell LTC (Join to see) LTC Wayne Brandon LTC Wayne Brandon
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