War Stories II (50 page)

As the remnants of the Japanese fleet fled toward Okinawa, Mitscher's pilots sank the carrier
Hiyo
and severely damaged two others,
Chiyoda
and
Zuikaku
. On their final sortie of the day, they plastered the battleship
Haruna
—killing more than 500 of her crew. By sunset on 20 June, the Imperial Fleet had lost all but thirty-six of its airplanes—to only nineteen American aircraft downed.

That night, risking attack by Japanese submarines, Mitscher courageously ordered his fleet to turn on their lights so that the returning aircraft—low on fuel and exhausted from two days of near nonstop fighting—could make it back to their carriers. Even so, more than eighty U.S. planes were lost in this night recovery than had been brought down by the Japanese. When the battle was over, forty-nine of Mitscher's pilots had been killed.

By 24 June, Spruance and his fleet were back, standing off the Marianas and devoting their full attention to supporting the land battle on Saipan while other ships “softened up” Guam and nearby Tinian for invasion. On 9 July, the Americans pushed the remaining Japanese on Saipan into a pocket along some cliffs on the north coast of the island. There, more than 1,000 of them—including women and children—hurled themselves to their deaths rather than surrender or be taken prisoner. It was a terrible end to a brutal battle. More than 29,000 Japanese were dead, but 3,400 Americans had also been killed and another 13,000 wounded.

Just twelve days later, on 21 July, after pounding Guam for as many days with air and naval gunfire, the 3rd Amphibious Corps—composed of the
3rd Marine Division, the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, and the U.S. Army's 77th Infantry Division—landed on Guam, the largest island in the Marianas chain. The Marine and Army units, relying heavily on naval gunfire from the fleet surrounding the island, moved slowly across the island from west to east. They met determined resistance from 8,000 Japanese, who holed up in caves while preparing for banzai charges every night until the island was secured.

Sergeant Cyril “Obie” O'Brien had enlisted in the Marines after being turned down for Officers' Candidate School because he was half an inch too short. He had seen action as a rifleman on Bougainville, but thereafter he served as a war correspondent. When the Marines invaded Guam, he went with them, filing reports from the front for American newspapers and wire services.

On 24 July, while the battle for Guam was still being fought, the 4th Marine Division assaulted Tinian. Since so many of the Navy's heavy guns were engaged in supporting operations on Guam 110 miles to the south, the Marines on Tinian relied on the continuous fire from more than 200 artillery pieces lined up on the south coast of Saipan. Using napalm for the first time in direct support of the infantry, Marine and Navy pilots flying from Saipan's captured airfield flew nonstop missions against 10,000 Japanese defenders.

It took seven days to secure Tinian, at a cost of 385 Marine casualties. Guam, much larger and with a significant civilian population, took two weeks and cost 1,500 American deaths. On 10 August, Guam was declared secure. But even then, it wasn't: The last Japanese defender on Guam didn't give himself up until 1972.

Within a matter of days, the smaller airfields on all three islands were in operation as advance air bases, and Seabees were working to build the much larger air bases required for the B-29 “Superfortress” bombers that would soon start wreaking havoc on Japan's Home Islands. Guam's Apra Harbor and Magicienne Bay on Saipan were converted to fleet anchorages, fuel depots, and repair facilities for use by the combatants and support ships Nimitz would need to support the invasion of the Philippines and the Home Islands.

Prime Minister Tojo, seeing the inevitable, resigned on 18 September. By November, the B-29s that had precipitated the landings were launching raids over Tokyo and other Japanese cities from air bases in the Marianas. In August 1945, the two planes carrying the atomic bombs that ended the war—perhaps saving over a million lives—launched from blood-soaked Tinian. The sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who had captured the islands had not been in vain.