War Stories II (48 page)

Though the Joint Chiefs in Washington were more than pleased with the pace Nimitz was setting across the central Pacific, Douglas MacArthur was not. Declaring the Gilbert and Marshall Islands operations “diversions,” he urged that more forces be allocated to his southwest Pacific drive and all but demanded that his advance on the Philippines be given priority as the main attack against Japan.

The Joint Chiefs, deeply engaged in the final preparations for Operation Overlord—the invasion of France—responded by curtly reaffirming the “dual advance” strategy advocated by Nimitz and ordering MacArthur to be ready for an assault on the Philippine island of Mindanao by November. Nimitz was directed to seize Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in the summer, secure the Palau Islands in September, and be prepared to support MacArthur's return to the Philippines when needed. The decision satisfied both strong-willed leaders—particularly since their respective commands were promised the men and matériel necessary to accomplish their difficult tasks.

One of the reasons that Washington could make such a commitment was the overwhelming response of American industry. By the spring of 1944, despite having more than ten million men already in uniform, American
shipyards, airplane plants, and arsenals were churning out sufficient ships, planes, tanks, and weapons to fight a two-front war. There was no way for the Japanese to keep pace.

The statistics were staggering. In 1942, America produced 214 warships; Japan built 37. In 1943, America launched 414 ships to Japan's 57. The same disparity was evident in every other category of war matériel. And worse, from the Japanese perspective, American submarines were choking off their flow of oil and strategic materials from Southeast Asia and the East Indies, even coal and steel from Manchuria. By the time Nimitz was ready to send his 5th Fleet against the Marianas, U.S. submarines were sinking Japanese merchant ships faster than they could be replaced.

 

Admiral Soemu Toyoda succeeded Admiral Mineichi Koga after Koga was killed in action.

MacArthur, anxious to take advantage of the Japanese shortages and impatient to wrap up operations on New Guinea, started a series of rapid advances west on the island's northern coast. On 22 April, with support from Marc Mitscher's fast carriers, his 84,000 troops at Hollandia and Aitape bypassed Japanese garrisons at Wewak and Madang. Tens of thousands of Japanese troops were killed or left to starve to death in the fetid jungles of New Guinea. In each case, MacArthur's engineers built or improved existing airstrips for his growing fleet of 5th Air Force fighters and bombers.

While MacArthur marshaled strength for his next leap up the New Guinea coast—and while Nimitz was finalizing plans for the Marianas campaign—the strategic picture changed. In early May, their Imperial Japanese opponent—Admiral Mineichi Koga—was killed in a plane crash en route to inspect the construction of naval facilities in the Palau Islands designed to replace the bases on Rabaul and Truk. His replacement, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, was far more aggressive and assured the General Staff in Tokyo that he would “hold the line” and prevent the loss of the Philippines or the Marianas. He set out to surprise the Americans with a plan that he called
A-Go
.

MacArthur was the first to see and feel the effects of Toyoda's leadership. On 17 May he invested Sarmi against relatively light opposition. But on 27 May, his 7th Fleet Amphibious Force landed on the island fortress of Biak. Toyoda, anticipating the move, had reinforced the island garrison and its strength now stood at 11,000. With MacArthur's landing force heavily engaged ashore, Toyoda called for a surface raid by Japan's two largest battleships,
Yamato
and
Musashi
. Escorted by cruisers and destroyers, the battleships were to knock out MacArthur's transports and then decimate the American invaders from the rear with their heavy-caliber guns while the Japanese garrison counter-attacked.

But on 11 June, as Toyoda's battle group prepared to sortie from the Moluccan Islands, Nimitz began his attack on Saipan. Learning of it, Toyoda called off the
Yamato
/
Musashi
counter-offensive and sent the battleships north to defend the approaches to the Philippines. MacArthur's invasion of Biak was saved by the move he hadn't wanted Nimitz to make.

Saipan, the first American objective in the Marianas, is roughly the size of Manhattan Island and had been seized by the Japanese the same day they bombed Pearl Harbor. But by the spring of 1944, Tokyo had declared it to be part of their “National Defense Zone” and posted General Hideyoshi Obata and a 27,000-man garrison to hold it “at all costs.”

To wrest control of the island from Obata's troops, Admiral Spruance had assembled an armada of nearly 550 ships. It included 30 aircraft carriers, 1,000 aircraft, 14 battleships, more than 120 destroyers, and the amphibious shipping to carry the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and the 27th Infantry Division, totaling over 100,000 men.

Spruance embarked in the 5th Fleet flagship, the cruiser
Indianapolis
, and had departed the Marshalls on 6 June as 150,000 young Americans were storming the beaches of Normandy, France, half a world away. On 11 June, he sent Marc Mitscher's carrier aircraft on ahead to knock out any Japanese aircraft they could find in the southern Marianas. Once the Japanese air threat was eliminated, three battleships joined in pounding known and suspected targets on Saipan and stayed at it through the arrival of the amphibious force.

On 14 June, in an effort to further isolate the Marianas, Spruance dispatched two of Mitscher's fast carrier groups to the north to work over enemy airfields on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima. That same afternoon, the rest of the battleships and heavy cruisers of his amphibious force arrived off Saipan and began blasting the fourteen-mile-long island with more heavy guns.

But the naval aviators dropping the bombs and the gunners pumping their sixteen-inch and eight-inch shells at targets ashore quickly learned that not all the lessons learned at Tarawa were still applicable. Unlike the flat atolls of the Gilbert and Marshall islands, Saipan and the rest of the Marianas were jungle-covered, mountainous coral islands, honeycombed with natural and man-made caves. The Japanese made good use of all the cover, concealment, and protection the island offered against the American onslaught.

While the bombers and large-caliber guns did their work, Navy UDTs confirmed that there were no mines on or off the landing beaches that Admiral Turner and General Smith had chosen on the southwest side of the island. Any celebration of this good news was quickly dampened by the impact of high-caliber rounds fired from Saipan that struck the USS
California
and one of her destroyer escorts, causing casualties on both. Clearly the pre–D-Day bombardment hadn't been as effective as hoped.

Among those watching the awesome pre-landing bombardment was Corporal Don Swindle. He had enlisted from Indiana and was still a teenager when he headed off to recruit training in San Diego. On 15 June 1944, he was a rifleman in the 4th Marine Division, preparing to invade Saipan.

At dawn on 15 June, more than 8,000 Marines of the 2nd and 4th Divisions embarked in armored amphibians and armed LVTs. They were landed in under twenty minutes after a massive final bombardment. It wasn't enough.
The assault waves were greeted on the beach by furious artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire from the dug-in and well-prepared defenders. By dark, the 20,000 Marines who had come ashore were well short of their intended objectives and more than 10 percent of them were already casualties.