A Close Encounter:

The Marine Landing on Tinian

by Richard Harwood

hree weeks into the

battle for Saipan,

there was no doubt

about the outcome

and V Amphibious

Corps (VAC) commanders began

turning their attention to the next

objective — the island of Tinian,

clearly visible three miles off Saipan's

southwest coast. Its garrison of 9,000

Japanese army and navy combatants,

many of them veterans of the campaigns in Manchuria, had been bombarded for seven weeks by U.S. air

and sea armadas, joined in late June

by massed Marine Corps and Army

artillery battalions on Saipan's

southern coast. The 2d and 4th Marine Divisions, both still in the thick

of the Saipan fight, had been selected for the assault mission.

The crucial question of where they

would land, however, was still undecided. There was strong support

among the planners for a landing on

two narrow sand strips — code named

White 1 and White 2— on Tinian's

northwest coast; one was 60 yards

wide, the other 160. But Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner, overall

commander of the Marianas Expeditionary Force, was skeptical. He

leaned toward Yellow Beach, made

up of several wide, sandy strips in

front of Tinian Town, the island's

On the Cover: Following the assault

waves, 4th Division Marines wade

ashore at Tinian from Coast Guard landing craft against no opposition on the

beaches.

At left: Amphibian tractors and Higgins

boats (LCVPs, landing craft, vehicle and

personnel) leave wakes as they land Marines on White Beach 2 and return to assault shipping off shore to load more

troops and supplies. Department of

Defense Photo (USMC) 87085

heavily fortified administrative and

commercial center.

On 3 July, VAC's Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded

by Captain James L. Jones, was put

on alert for reconnaissance of these

potential landing sites. On 9 July, the

day Saipan officially was declared secured, Jones got his operation order

from Marine Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, commander of Expeditionary Troops. His men were to

scout out the Tinian beaches and

their fortifications and determine

their capacity to handle the landing

force and keep it supplied. Accompanying naval underwater demolition teams would do the hydrographic work and locate underwater

obstacles, natural or man-made.

Captain Jones picked for the job

Company A under the command of

Captain Merwin H. Silverthorn, Jr.,

the son of a Marine general and

World War I veteran, and Company

B, commanded by Firt Lieutenant

Leo B. Shinn. The Navy assigned to

the mission Underwater (UDI) Team

5, led by Lieutenant Commander

Draper L. Kauffman, and UIX Team

7 under Lieutenant Richard F. Burke.

They rehearsed the operation on the

night of 9-10 July off the beaches of

Saipan's Magicienne Bay. On the

evening of the 10th, the Marine and

Navy units boarded the destroyer

transports Gilrner and Stringharn for

the short trip into the channels

separating the two islands.

The teams debarked in rubber

boats at 2030, paddled to within 500

yards of the beach and swam to their

destinations. Fortunately, it was a

black night and although the moon

rose at 2230, it was largely obscured

by clouds.

Yellow Beach was assigned to Sil-

:1

verthorn's Company A. He led 20

Marines and eight UDT swimmers

ashore. They found a beach near

Tinian Town flanked on each side by

formidable cliffs. There were many

floating mines and underwater boulders in the approaches. On the beach

itself, double-apron barbed wire had

been strung. Second Lieutenant

Donald K Neff worked his way 30

yards inland to locate exit routes for

vehicles. Nearby, talkative Japanese

work crews were building pillboxes

and trenching with blasting charges.

Neff spotted three Japanese sentries

on a cliff overlooking the beach; now

and then searchlights scanned the

beach approaches.
Silverthorn, Burke, and their men

made it back to the Gilmer safely.

Their impression of Yellow Beach as

a landing site was distinctly unfavorable.

To the north, at the White Beaches

assigned to Company B, things had

not gone well. Strong currents

pushed the rubber boats off course.

The team headed for White 1 was

swept 800 yards north of its destination and never got ashore. The party

headed for White 2 wound up on

White 1 and reconnoitered the area.

Both parties were picked up by the

Gilmer. The next night 10 swimmers

from Company A were sent back to

reconnoiter White 2 and had a successful trip.

The reports on the White beaches

were encouraging. Although the

landing areas were very restricted, it

was concluded that amphibian tractors (LVTs) and other vehicles could

negotiate the reefs and get ashore,

and that troops with little difficulty

could clamber over the low cliffs

flanking the beaches. Marines forced

to disembark from boats at the reef

could safely wade ashore through the

shallow surf. Members of Kauffman's

UDT party confirmed the Marine

findings and reported that "no mines

or manmade underwater obstructions were found."

A few hours after the reconnaissance team returned from White 2,

Admiral Turner's objections were

withdrawn and a command decision

to use the northern beaches was

made. On 20 July, a time and date for

the landing were fixed: 0730 on 24

July.

The task of seizing Tinian was assigned to the two Marine divisions

on Saipan — the 2d and the 4th. The

third division on the island — the Army's 27th Infantry—would remain

on Saipan in reserve. All three had

been severely battered during the Saipan campaign, suffering more than

14,000 casualties, including nearly

3,200 dead.

For the 2d Marine Division, the

Tinian battle would be the fourth

2

time around in a span of little more

than 18 months. The division left

Guadalcanal in February 1943, having suffered 1,000 battle casualties.

Another 12,500 men had diagnosed

cases of malaria. Nine months

later— on 20 November 1943— the

division had gone through one of the

most intense 72 hours of combat in

the history of island warfare at TaraWa. It sustained 3,200 casualties, including nearly a thousand dead. Ten

weeks before Tarawa, the division

was still malaria-ridden, with troops

being hospitalized for the disease at

the rate of 40 a day. The ranks were

filled with gaunt men whose skins

were yellowed by daily doses of

Atabrine pills. The Saipan operation

seven months later, led by division

commander Major General Thomas

E. Watson, took a heavy toll of these

men —5,000 wounded, 1,300 dead.

Watson had earned a reputation at

Saipan as a hard-charging leader.

When the division stalled fighting its

way up Mount Topatchau, he was

unimpressed. The historian Ronald

Spector wrote, in the midst of that

effort, "he was heard shouting over

a field telephone, 'There's not a goddamn thing up on that hill but some

Japs with machine guns and mortars.

Now get the hell up there and get

themi'" His assistant division commander was Brigadier General Merritt A. "Red Mike" Edson, who was

awarded a Medal of Honor for his

heroism on Guadalcanal.

The 4th Division had had a busy,

if slightly less demanding, year as

well. It went directly into combat after its formation at Camp Pendleton,

California, landing on 31 January

1944 in the Marshall Islands where

it suffered moderate casualties—

fewer than 800 men — in the capture

of Roi-Namur. At Saipan its losses

reached 6,000, including about 1,000

dead. The Tinian landing would be

its third in a little over six months

and would be the first under a new

divisional commander— Major General Clifton B. Cates, a well-decorated

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 151969

An oblique photograph of White Beach 1 was taken before naval gunfire, artillery,

air bombardment, and bulldozers altered its appearance. This 60-yard beach later

became the port of entry for most of V Amphibious Corps' heavy equipment.
World War I veteran, who would become the 19th Commandant of the

Marine Corps in 1948.

Still, "the morale of the troops

committed to the Tinian operation

was generally high;' then-Major Carl

Vi. Hoffman wrote in the official history of the battle. "This fact takes on

significance only when it is recalled

that the Marines involved had just

survived a bitter 25-day struggle and

that, with only a fortnight lapse (as

distinguished from a fortnight rest),

they were again to assault enemyheld shores . . . . [Their] spirit

was revealed more in a philosophical

shrug, accompanied with a 'here-wego-again' remark, than in a resentful

complaint [at] being called upon

again so soon:'

The morale of the troops was sustained by the preinvasion fires directed at Tinian. For Jig minus 1 and Jig

Day (Jig being the name given to D

Day at Tinian), Rear Admiral Harry

W. 1-1111, commander of the Northern

Landing Force, had divided the island

into five fire support sectors, assigning specific ships to each. His purpose was two-fold: destruction and

deception to confuse and deceive the

Japanese as to the landing intentions

of the Marines.

Tinian Town, under this scheme,

got the heaviest pounding the day be3

fore the landing—almost 3,000

rounds of 5- to 16-inch shells from

the battleships Colorado, Tennessee,

and California, the cruiser Cleveland, and seven destroyers: Ramey,

Wadleigh, Norman Scott, Ivlonssen,

Waller, Pringle and Philip. Colorado

had the best day, knocking out with

60 rounds of 16-inch shells the two

6-inch coastal defense guns the

Japanese had emplaced on the west

coast near Faibus San Hilo Point,

guns that easily could have covered

the White Beaches.

Firing on the White Beach area itself was minimal for purposes of deception and for lack of suitable targets. The cruiser Louisville fired 390
rounds into the area before calling it

a day

There was a lot of air activity on

the 23d. At three periods during the

day, naval gunfire and artillery barrages were halted to allow massive air

strikes on railroad junctions, pillboxes, villages, gun emplacements, cane

fields, and the beaches at Tinian

Town. More than 350 Navy and

Army planes took part, dropping 500

bombs, 200 rockets, 42 incendiary

clusters, and 34 napalm bombs. This

was only the second use of napalm

during the Pacific War; napalm

bombs were first used on Tinian the

day before.

That evening, 37 LSTs at anchor

off Saipan were loaded with 4th Marine Division troops. Rations for

three days, water and medical supplies, ammunition, vehicles, and

other equipment had been preloaded, beginning on 15 July The

troops were going to travel light: a

spoon, a pair of socks, insect repellant, and emergency supplies in their

pockets, and no pack on their backs.

"Close at hand;' the historians Jeter

Isely and Philip Crowl wrote in their

classic The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War, "rode the ships of the

two transport divisions that would

carry two regiments of the 2d Marine

Division on a diversionary feint

against Tinian Town and would later

disembark them along with the third

regiment across the northwestern

beaches:' (A similar feint was made

by 2d Division Marines less than a

year later off the southeast beaches

of Okinawa, and by the same division lying off Kuwait City nearly 50

years later in the Desert Storm

operation).

The 4th was designated the assault

division for Tinian. The beaches

were not wide enough to accommodate battalions landing abreast,

much less divisions. Instead, the assault troops would land by columns — squads, platoons, and companies.

The 2d Division would follow on

White Beach 2 accommodated two battalions landing in filet with a single rifle company in the assault. The 25th Marines crossed this 160-yard beach on Jig Day, literally unopposed followed by two light artillery battalions and the 23d Marines.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 150633

4
General Clifton B. Cates, USMC

lii ton B. Cates, a native Tennessean, was commissioned in

1917, and was sent to France

with the 6th Marines in World War I. He

had outstanding service in five major engagements of the war, and returned to

the United States a well-decorated young

officer after his tour in the occupation of

Germany. One of his early assignments

following the war was as aide to Major

General Commandant George Barnett.

During his more than 37 years as a Marine, Cates was one of the few officers

who held commands of a platoon, a

company, a battalion, a regiment, and

a division in combat. He was the 19th

Commandant of the Marine Corps at the

outset of the Korean War.

His assignments during the interwar

years consisted of a combination of

schooling, staff assignments, and command, such as his tour as battalion commander in the 4th Marines, then in

Shanghai. In 1940, he took command of

the Basic School, then in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He took command of

the 1st Marines in May 1942.

In World War II, Cates commanded

the 1st Marines in the landing on

Guadalcanal. After returning to the

States, he was promoted to brigadier

general. He went back to the Pacific war

in mid-1944 to take command of the 4th

Marine Division in time for the Tinian

operation. He also led it in the Iwo Jima

assault, and was decorated at the end of

the fighting with his second Distinguished Service Medal. Part of the citation accompanying the medal reads:

"Repeatedly disregarding his own personal safety, Major General Cates

traversed his own front lines daily to rally his tired, depleted units and by his undaunted valor, tenacious perseverance,

and staunch leadership in the face Qf

overwhelming odds, constantly inspired

his stout-hearted Marines to heroic effort

during critical phases of the campaign."

On 1 January 1948, General Cates

took over as Commandant of the Marine Corps, remaining until 31 Deçember 1951, when he reverted to the three

stars of a lieutenant general and began

his second tour as Commandant of the

Marine Corps Schools at Quantico, Virginia. General Cates retired on 30 June

1954. He died on 4 June 1970.

after taking part in the massive feint

off the beaches of Tinian Town, hoping to tie down the main Japanese

defense forces and spring the surprise

of a landing over the lightly defended northern beaches.

To give the 4th more punch immediately after landing, the 2d was

stripped of some of its firepower,

such as tank and artillery units. It

would, accordingly, be at the lowest

strength at Tinian of any Marine division involved in an amphibious

operation in World War II.

Despite these additions, the 4th,

too, would be understrength —

"skinny" was the descriptive word

used by Lieutenant Colonel Justice

M. "Jumping Joe" Chambers, commander of the 3d Battalion, 25th Marines, who was to earn a Medal of

Honor in the Iwo Jima operation little more than six months later. The

division's infantry battalions had

received only one replacement draft

after the Saipan fighting. At full

strength they averaged 880 men; at

Tinian the average strength was

down by more than 35 percent to

565.

For all these reasons — combat f atigue, heavy losses during previous

weeks and months, and understrength units — the Marines on Tinian would play a cautious game.

Admiral Turner had said he would

give them two weeks to seize the island. Major General Harry Schmidt,

who relieved Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith as VAC commander,

promised to get it done in 10 days.

In the event, the island was secured

after nine days. In retrospect,

analysts say the operation could have

been finished off sooner by more aggressive tactics. Time, however, was

no great factor; the relatively slow

pace of the operation probably kept

casualties at a minimum and reduced

the probabilities of troop fatigue.

Tinian was easy on the eyes, but the

heat and humidity were brutal, the

cane fields were hard going, and it

was the season of monsoons. S

The first troop ships moved out of

Saipan's Charan Kanoa harbor at

0330, 24 July. They were the transports Knox, Calvert, Fuller, Bell,

Heyv,ood, and John Land. They

were carrying the 2d and 8th Marines

(infantry regiments) of the 2d Marine

Division on a mission of deception

that turned out to be far bloodier

than the White Beach landings and

far bloodier than anyone had anticipated. They had a muscular escort — the battleship Colorado, the light

cruiser Cleveland, and the destroyers

Ratney, Norman Scott, Wadleigh,

and Monssen.

The convoy moved into Sunharon

Harbor opposite Tinian Town just

before dawn. A few minutes after

0600, the Calvert began lowering its

landing craft and by 0630 all 22 of

its boats were in the water. Marines

climbed down the cargo nets. Within

a half hour, 244 Navy and Army

planes began strafing and bombing
runs paying particular attention to

Tinian Town. Shells and rockets from

battleships, heavy and light cruisers,

destroyers, and 30 gunboats saturated the beaches. The massed artillery

battalions on southern Saipan thundered in with their 105s and 155s.

After a half-hour of this furious

bombardment, the LCVPs (landing

craft, vehicle and personnel) from

Calvert began their run toward the

beach at Tinian Town, receiving

heavy artillery and mortar fire from

the shore. Admiral Hill, seeking to

avoid casualties, ordered the boats to

withdraw and reform. A second run

started and immediately drew fire

from the shore; several boats were

sprayed with shell fragments. But

they continued on to within 400

yards of the beach before turning

back.

While the small boats engaged in

this maneuver, the battleship Colorado came under fire at a range of 3,200

yards from two 6-inch naval guns

near Tinian Town, guns that had

gone undetected during the weeks of

preinvasion surveillance and preparatory fires. Within 15 minutes, the

Japanese gunners scored 22 direct hits

on Colorado and six direct hits on

the destroyer Norman Scott, which

was attempting to protect the battleship. Casualties among the crews and

Marine detachments on the two ships

were heavy: 62 killed and 223

wounded. Ten Marines were among

dead, 31 were among the woundColorado was through for the

and limped off back to Saipan.

Japanese battery survived for

the

ed.

day

The

6
four more days until destroyed by the

battleship Tennessee.

The losses sustained by the two

ships exceeded those suffered that

day by the Marine landing force on

the northwestern beaches. But the

feint served its purpose. It froze in

place around Tinian Town a whole

battalion of the 50th Infantry Regirnent and various elements of the

56th Naval Guard Force. And it convinced the Japanese commander,

Colonel Kiyochi Ogata, that he had

thwarted an invasion. His message to

Tokyo described how his forces had

repelled 100 landing barges.

These "barges" were reloaded on

the Culvert at 1000 and the convoy

steamed north to the White Beaches

where 4th Division troops had landed after a mishap in their planning.

An underwater demolition team using floats carrying explosives swam

to White Beach 2 shortly before

dawn to blast away boulders and

destroy beach mines. The mission

failed because of a squall. The floats

scattered, the explosives were lost

and a few hours later, Marines paid

a price for this aborted mission.

To compensate for the failure of

the UEYT team, fire support ships lying off the White Beaches — the battleships California and Tennessee, the

heavy cruiser Louisville, and four

destroyers — blasted away at the landing areas. Air strikes were then ordered at about 0630 and observers

claimed that five of the 14 known

beach mines had been destroyed. A

battery of 155mm "Long Tom" guns

on Saipan fired smokeshells at the

Japanese command post on Mount

Lasso and also laid smoke in the

woods and on the bluffs just beyond

the beaches to obstruct Japanese observation.

The assault plan assigned White

Beach 1 to the 24th Marines and

7

White Beach Two to the 25th. In the

vanguard for the 24th was Company

E of the 2d Battalion —200 men commanded by Captain Jack F. Ross, Jr.

Company A of the 1st Battalion,

commanded by Captain Irving

Schechter, followed and by 0820 the

entire 2d Battalion, commanded by

Major Frank A. Garretson, was

ashore.

Almost simultaneously, two battalions of the 25th Marines loaded

into 16 LVTs landed in columns of

companies on White Beach 2. The 2d

Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel

Lewis C. Hudson, Jr., was on the

right; the 3d Battalion (Lieutenant

Colonel Chambers) was on the left.

The units of the 24th, loaded into

24 LVTs, crossed the line of departure

—3,000 yards offshore—at 0717.

Ahead of them, 30 LCIs (landing

craft, infantry) and a company of the

2d Armored Amphibian Battalion,

commanded by Lieutenant Colonel

Reed M. Fawell, Jr., raked the

beaches with barrage rockets and automatic cannon fire. On the 26-minute run to the beach, the troop-laden

LVTs took scattered and ineffectual

rifle and machine gun fire.

At! White 1, members of a small

Japanese beach detachment, holed

up in caves and crevices, resisted the

landing with intense small arms fire.

But they were silenced quickly by

Company E gunners.

Within an hour, the entire 1st and

2d Battalions of the 24th were ashore

on White 1, preparing to move inland. The 2d Battalion encountered

sporadic artillery, mortar, and small

arms fire during the first 200 yards

of its advance. After that, Garretson

later said, the battalion had a "cake

walk" for the rest of the day, gaining

1,400 yards and reaching its 0-1 line

objective by 1600. He occupied the

western edge of Airfield No. 3 and

cut the main road linking Airfield

No. 1 with the east coast and

southern Tinian. Only occasional

small arms fire was encountered before the battalion dug in for the

night.

Fire Support Itnhl I (1340 1)

Poor Admiral Jesse B.Qldendorl

VLaded lie (CA)

Conway (001

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FIRE SUPPORT SECTOR 2

Fire Sepper I Unit 2 (2250 * Ceptoin Thomas B. I nglis

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New Orleans (CA)

Helney Powell (DO)

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FIRE SUPPORT SECTOR 4

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Norman Scott (DO)

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FOR LANDING

On Garretson's left, the 1st Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant

Colonel Otto Lessing, was slowed by

heavy fires from cave positions and

patches of heavy vegetation.

Flamethrower tanks were sent up

against these positions, but the

Japanese held on. As a result, Lessing pulled up late in the afternoon

400 yards short of his objective. This

left a gap between his perimeter and

Garretson's. To fill it, the regiment's

3d Battalion, waiting in reserve at the

beach, was called up.

Almost simultaneously, the 25th

ran into problems. The beach and

surrounding area had been methodically seeded with mines which

neither ULIT teams nor offshore gunners had been able to destroy. It took

six hours to clear them out and in the

process three LVTs and a jeep were

blown up. The beach defenses also

included a sprinkling of booby traps

which had to be dealt with — watches

and cases of beer, for example, all

wired to explode in the hands of careless souvenir hunters.

Behind the beach, troops from

Ogata's 50th Regiment put up a

vigorous defense with mortars, antitank and anti-boat guns, and other

8

automatic weapons emplaced in pillboxes, caves, fortified ravines, and

field entrenchments. Two 47mm guns

in particular kept the Marines back

on their heels. They finally bypassed

these troublesome positions. Later

waves took them out, leaving 50

dead Japanese in the gunpits.

The 3d Battalion commander,

Lieutenant Colonel Chambers, later

remembered a lot of confusion on the

beach, 'the confusion you [always]

gel when you land, of getting the organization together again:' One of his

company commanders, for example,

was killed a half-hour after landing

I

Artillery Groupments

A,8 P.C

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Fai bus San

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Asigo Point

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Masolog Point

IN IAN

Ti,ian

BLUE e8cH

Marpo Point

Lob Point

RD 748

6000

YARDS

'0..000
Tinian Defense Forces

apanese military fortification of Tinian and other

islands in the chain had begun — in violation of the

League of Nations Mandate—in the 1930s. By 1944, the

Tiniari garrison numbered roughly 9,000 army and navy personnel, bringing the island's total population to nearly 25,000.

The 50th Infantry Regiment, detached from the 29th Div ision on Guam, was the principal fighting force. It had been

stationed near Mukden, Manchuria, from 1941 until its transfer in March 1944 to Tinian. Many of its troops were veterans of the Manchurian campaigns. The regiment was

commanded by Colonel Kiyoshi [also spelled "Keishi"] Ogata and consisted of three 880-man infantry battalions, a

75mm mountain artillery battalion equipped with 12 guns,

engineer, communication, and medical companies, plus a

headquarters and various specialized support units, including a company of 12 light tanks and an anti-tank platoon.

He also had a battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment with

a strength of about 900 men. Altogether, slightly more than

5,000 army troops were assigned to the island's defense.

The principal navy unit was the 56th Naval Guard Force,

a 1,400-man coastal defense unit, supplemented by four construction battalions with a combined strength of 1,800 men.

Other naval units, totaling about 1,000 men, included ground

elements of seven aviation squadrons and a detachment of

the 5th Base Force.

The navy personnel —about 4,200 altogether—were under

the immediate command of Captain Oichi Oya. Both Oya and

Ogata were outranked on the island by Vice Mmiral Kakuji

Kakuda, commander of the 1st Air Fleet with headquarters

on Tinian. But Kakuda, as the invasion neared, had no air

fleet to command. Of the estimated 107 planes based at Tinian's air fields, 70 had been destroyed on the ground early in

June by U.S. air strikes. By the time of the Tinian landing on

24 July, none of Kakuda's planes were operative.

Kakuda had a bad reputation. He was, by Japanese physical standards, a hulking figure: more than six feet tall, weighing more than 200 pounds. "He willingly catered:' Hoffman

wrote, "to his almost unquenchable thirst for liquor; he lacked

the fortitude to face the odds arrayed against him at Tinian."

Historian Frank Hough called him "a drunk and an exceedingly unpleasant one, from all accounts:'

On 15 July, nine days before the invasion, Kakuda and his

headquarters group attempted to escape via rubber boats to

Aguijan Island where they hoped to rendezvous with a

Japanese submarine. This effort failed. He tried again on five

successive nights with the same results, finally abandoning the

effort on 21 July. He fled with his party from Tinian Town

to a cave on Tinian's east coast where they awaited their fate.

A Japanese prisoner who described Kakudas escape efforts

assumed he had committed suicide after the American landing, but this was never verified. Toward the end of the battle

for Tinian, one of Kakuda's orderlies led an American patrol

to the cave. The patrol was fired upon and two Marines were

wounded. A passing group of Marine pioneers sealed the cave

9

with demolition charges but it is unknown whether Kakuda

was inside.

Admiral Kakuda in any case took no part in directing the

Japanese resistance. For purposes of defending the island, command of both army and navy forces was assumed by Colonel

Ogata, but co-operation between the two service branches was

less than complete. Frictions were reflected in diaries found

among the Japanese documents captured on Tinian. A soldier in the 50th Regiment's artillery battalion wrote:

9 March —The Navy stays in barracks buildings

and has liberty every night with liquor to drink and

makes a big row.

We, on the other hand, bivouac in the rain and

never get out on pass. What a difference in discipline!

12 June—Our AA guns [manned by the Navy]

spread black smoke where the enemy planes weren't.

Not one hit out of a thousand shots. The Naval Air

Group has taken to its heels.

15 June —The naval aviators are robbers. . . When

they ran off to the mountains, they stole Army provisions .

The defenses of Tinian were dictated by the geography of

the island. It is encircled by coral cliffs which rise from the

coastline and are a part of the limestone plateau underlying

the island. These cliffs range in height from 6 to 100 feet;

breaks in the cliff line are rare and where they occur are narrow, leaving little beach space for an invasion force. Along

the entire coastline of Tinian, only four beaches were worthy

of the name.

The largest and most suitable for use by an amphibious

force was in front of Tinian Town in Suharon Harbor. It consisted of several wide, sandy strips. The harbor was mediocre

but provided in fair weather limited anchorage for a few ships

which could load and unload cargo at two piers available at

Tinian Town.

From the beginning, Colonel Ogata assumed that this beach

would be the first choice of the Americans. Of the roughly

100 guns in fixed positions on the island — ranging from 7.7mm

heavy machine guns to 6-inch British naval rifles — nearly a

third were assigned to the defense of Tinian Town and its

beaches and to the airfield at Gurguan Point, two-and-a-half

miles northwest of the town. Within a two-mile radius of the

town were the 2d Battalion of the 50th Infantry Regiment,

1,400 men of the 56th Naval Guard Force, a tank company

of the 18th lnfantry Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 135th

Infantry Regiment, which had been designated as the mobile

counterattack force.

Their area of responsibility extended to Laslo Point, the

southernmost part of the island and, on the east, to Masalog

Point. It was designated the "Southern Sector" in Ogata's

defense plan.

The remainder of the island was divided into northeastern

and northwestern sectors. The northeastern sector included
the lishi Point airfields and a potential landing beach 125 yards

wide south of Asiga Point on the east coast of the island. In

this sector, between 600 and 1,000 navy personnel were stationed around the lishi Airfields. The 2d Battalion of the 50th

Infantry Regiment, along with an engineer group, was stationed inland of Asagi Point. The northwestern sector contained two narrow strips of beach 1,000 yards apart. One of

them was 60 yards wide and the other about 160. They were

popular with Japanese civilians. The sand was white and the

water was swimmable. They were known locally as the White

Beaches and that is what they were called when they were

chosen — to the great surprise of the Japanese — as the American invasion route.

This sector was defended very modestly by a single company of infantry, an antitank squad, and, about 500 yards

northeast of the White Beaches, gun crews situated in emplacements containing one 37mm antitank gun, one 47mm antitank gun, and two 7.7mm machine guns.

Ogata established his command post in a cave on Mount

Lasso in the center of the northern region, roughly

equidistant — a little over two miles — from beaches on either

side of the island.

He issued on 25 June an operation order saying "the enemy

on Saipan can be expected to be planning a landing on Tinian. The area of that landing is estimated to be either Tinian

Harbor or Asiga Harbor Eon the northeast coastJ.' Three days

later he followed up with a "Defense Force Battle Plan" which

outlined only two contingencies:

(A) In the event the enemy lands at Tinian Harbor.

(B) In the event the enemy lands at Asiga Bay.

On 7 July Ogata issued a "Plan for the Guidance of Battle"

ordering his men to be prepared not only for landings at Tinian Town and Asiga Bay, but also for a counterattack

in the event the Americans were to invade across the White

Beaches.

In each of the three sectors, according to his battle plan,

commanders were to be prepared to "destroy the enemy at the

beach, but [also] be prepared to shift two-thirds of the force

elsewhere:' His reserve force was to "maintain fortified positions, counter-attack points [andi maintain anti-aircraft observation and fire in its area:' The "Mobile Counterattack

Force" must "advance rapidly to the place of landings, depending on the situation and attack:' In the event of

successful landings his forces would "counterattack to the water

and . . destroy the enemy on beaches with one blow, especially where time prevents quick movement of forces within

the island:' If things were to go badly, "we will gradually fall

back on our prepared positions in the southern part of the

island and defend them to the last man:'

Some of these orders were contradictory and others were

impossible of execution. But despite the odds against them —

bereft of air or sea support and confronted by three heavily

armed divisions only three miles away on Saipan — the fighting spirit of the Japanese forces had not been broken by 43

days of the heaviest bombardment, up to then, of the Pacific

war. One of the men of the 50th Infantry Regiment wrote in

his diary on 30 June: 'We have spent twenty days under unceasing enemy bombardment and air raids but have suffered

only minor losses. Everyone from the Commanding Officer

to the lowest private is full of fighting spirit:' His

entry for 19 July, five days before the American landings, was

upbeat: "How exalted are the gallant figures of the Force

Commander, the Battalion Commander, and their subordinates, who have

bombardment:'

endured the violent artillery and air

and it took a while to get a replacement on scene and up to speed. Then

there was the problem of the mines

and a problem with artillery fire

from the Japanese command post on

Mount Lasso, two-and-a-half miles

away.

By late afternoon, Chambers' battalion had reached its objective 1,500

yards inland in the center of the line

and had tied in on its left flank with

Garretson of the 24th. The other battalions of the 25th came up short of

their 0-1 line, creating before sundown a crescent-shaped beachhead

3,000 yards wide at the shoreline and

bulging inland to a maximum depth

of 1,500 yards.

The day's greatest confusion surrounded the landing of the 23d Marines. The regiment had been held on

LSTs (landing ships, tank) in division

reserve during the landing of the 24th

and 25th. At 0730, the troops were

ordered below to board LVTs parked

cheek to jowl on the tank decks.

Their engines were running, spewing

forth carbon monoxide. Experience

had shown that troops cooped up

under these conditions for more than

30 minutes would develop severe

headaches, become nauseous, and

begin vomiting.

To avoid that problem and in the

absence of a launch order, the

regimental commander, Colonel

Louis R. Jones, soon unloaded his

men and sent them topside. They

returned to the tank decks at 1030

when an order to load and launch f inally was received. The regiment debarked and eventually got ashore

beginning at 1400 despite an incredible series of communication break10

downs in which Jones at crucial times

was out of touch with the division

and his battalions.

In addition to botched radio communications, Jones was stuck in an

LVT with a bad engine; it took him

seven hours to get ashore with his

staff, leading to a division complaint

about the tardiness of his regiment.

The division noted that "fortunately

no serious harm was done by [the]

delay;' but at the end of the operation Jones left the division. He was

promoted to brigadier general and assigned as assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division

for the Okinawa landings.

A similar muck-up occurred involving the 2d Marine Division. After the feint at Tinian Town, the

division sailed north and lay offshore

of the White Beaches through the
day. At 1515, the landing force commander, Major General Harry

Schmidt, ordered a battalion from

the 8th Marines to land at White

Beach to back up the 24th Marines.

Schmidt wanted the battalion ashore

at 1600. Because of communication

and transport confusion the deadline

was missed. It was 2000 when the

unit entered in its log '1 . . dug in in

assigned position:'

On the other hand, the big things

had gone well in the morning and afternoon. By the standards of Tarawa

and Saipan, casualties were light—iS

dead, 225 wounded. The body count

for the Japanese was 438. Despite

drizzling rain, narrow beaches, and

undiscovered mines, 15,600 troops

were put ashore along with great

quantities of materiel and equipment

that included four battalions of artillery two dozen half-tracks mounting 75mm guns, and 48 medium and

15 flame-throwing tanks which

found the Tinian terrain hospitable

for tank operations. The tanks had

gotten into action early that morning, leading the 24th in tank-infantry

attacks. They also had come to the

aid of the 23d Marines as that regiment moved inland to take over the

division's right flank. The beachhead

itself was of respectable size, despite

the failure of some units to reach

their first-day objectives. It extended inland nearly a mile and embraced

defensible territory. On the whole, it

had not been a bad day's work.

At about 1630, the 4th Division

commander, General Cates, ordered

his forces to button up for the night.

A nighttime counterattack was ex11

pected. Barbed wire, preloaded on

amphibian vehicles (DUKWs), was

strung all along the division front.

Ammunition was stacked at every

weapons position. Machine guns

were emplaced to permit interlocking fields of fire. Target areas were

assigned to mortar crews. Artillery

batteries in the rear were registered

to hit probable enemy approach

routes and to fire illuminating shells

if a lighted battlefield was required.

Of great importance, as it turned out,

was the positioning up front of

37mm guns and cannister ammunition (antipersonnel shells which fired

large pellets for close-in fighting); in

the night fighting that followed, they

inflicted severe losses on the enemy.

As the troops dug in to await

whatever the night would bring, the

24th Marines, backed up by the 1st

Battalion, 8th Marines, occupied the

northern half of the defensive crescent. The 25th and a battalion of the

23d occupied the southern half of the

crescent with the remainder of the

2.3d in reserve. On the beaches in the

rear, artillery battalions from the

10th and 14th Marines, engineer battalions, and other special troops were

on alert.

The Japanese, meanwhile, were

preparing for their counterattack. Because of shattered communications

lines, it could not be a coordinated

operation. Units would act on their

own under Colonel Ogata's general

order of 28 June to "destroy the enemy on beaches with one blow, especially where time prevents quick

movement of forces within the

isiland."

They had on the left or northern

flank of the Marine lines 600 to 1,000

naval troops at the Ushi Point airfields. Near Mount Lasso, opposite

By the time the assault waves landed, most, if not all, Japanese

Leach defense weapons had been destroyed by the preinvaDepartment of Defense Photo (USMC) 87701

sion bombardments. This Japanese navy-type 25mm machine

cannon was knocked out before it could disrupt the landings.

Even enemy weapons, such as this Japanese 120mm type 10 naval dual-purpose

gun located not-too-far inland from the invasion beaches, was put out of action,

but not before it, and two 6-inch guns, hit the battleship Colorado (BB 45) arid

destroyer Norman Scott (DD 690) causing casualties before being destroyed.

Department of Defense Photo (TJSMC) 91349

13
the center of the Marine lines, were

two battalions of the 50th Infantry

Regiment and a tank company, about

1,500 men all told. On the west coast,

facing the Marine right flank, were

about 250 men from an infantry

company of the 50th Regiment, a

tank detachment and an anti-tank

squad.

South of Mount Lasso, nearly six

miles from the White Beaches, was

the Japanese Mobile Counterattack

Force—a 900-man battalion of the

135th Infantry Regiment, equipped

with new rifles and demolition

charges. Its Journey toward the

northwestern beaches and the Marine lines was perilous. All movements in daylight were under air

surveillance and vulnerable to

American fire power. But the battalion set out under its commander—a

Captain Izumi —and was hit on

several occasions by unobserved artillery and naval gunfire. Izumi

pushed on and got to his objective

through skillful use of terrain for for

concealment. At 2230 he began probing the center of the Marine line

where the 2d Battalion, 24th Marines

under Garretson was tied in with the

3d Battalion under Chambers.

"While most of these Japanese

crept along just forward of the lines:'

Carl Hoffman wrote, ' . . a two-man

reconnaissance detail climbed up on

a battered building forward of the

24th Marines and audaciously (or

stupidly) commenced jotting notes

about, or drawing sketches of, the

front lines. This impudent gesture

was rewarded with a thundering concentration of U.S. artillery fire."

Chambers had a vivid memory of

that night:

There was a big gully that ran

from the southeast to northwest

and right into the western edge

of our area. Anybody in their

right mind could have figured

that if there was to be any counterattacks, that gully would be

used . During the night. . . my men

were reporting that they were

hearing a lot of Japanese chattering down in the gully .

Attacking Marines hold up their advance in the face of an exploding Japanese ammunition dump after an attack by Navy

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 5729S

planes supporting the drive across Tinian. Note the trees bent

over by the force of shock waves caused by the eruption.

Amphibian tractors line up waiting to discharge their Marine passengers on the

beach. The almost complete devastation of Japanese beachhead defenses, which

was not entirely expected by the Marines, permitted this peaceful combat landing.

Departnent of Defense Photo (USMC) 93379

14
They hit us about midnight in

K company's area. They hauled

by hand a couple of 75mm

howitzers with them and when

they got them up to where they

could fire at us, they hit us very

hard. I think K company did a

pretty damn good job but

about 150, 200 laps managed to

push through [the 1,500 yards]

to the beach area

When the laps hit the rear

areas, all the artillery and

machine guns started shooting

like hell. Their fire was coming

from the rear and grazing right

up over our heads. . . . In the

meantime, the enemy that hit L

company was putting up a hell

of a fight within 75 yards of

where I was and there wasn't a

damn thing I could do about it.

Over in K company's area...

was where the attack really developed. That's where lit.]

Mickey McGuire . . . had his

37mm guns on the left flank

and was firing nnister. Two of

my men were manning a

machine gun [Cpl Alfred 1. Daigle and Pfc Orville H. Showers]

These two lads laid out

While some Marines were deposited "feet dry" beyond the

shoreline of the beaches, others had to land "feet wet" wading

Department of Defense Photo (TJSMC) 88088

ashore in the shallows from the amtracs which brought them

in from the attack transports seen in the background.

Although frontline Marines appreciated the support of the 1st and 2d Provisional

Rocket Companies' truck-mounted 4.5-inch rocket launchers, they always dreaded

the period immediately following a barrage. The dust and smoke thrown up at that

time served as a perfect aiming point for enemy artillery and mortars which soon

followed. Notice the flight of rockets in the upper left hand section of the picture.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92269

15
in front of their machine gun a

cone of Jap bodies. There was

a dead Jap officer in with them.

Both of the boys were dead.

A Marine combat correspondent,

described this action:

IShowers and Daigle] held

their fire until the Japanese were

100 yards away, then opened

up. The Japanese charged,

screaming, "Banzai7 firing light

machine guns and throwing

hand grenades. It seemed impossible that the two

Marines—far ahead of their

own lines — could hold on.

The next morning they were

found slumped over their

weapons, dead. No less than

251 Japanese bodies were piled

in front of them... . The Navy

Cross was awarded posthumously to Daigle and the Silver

Star posthumously to Showers.

Just before daybreak, Chambers

recalled, two tank companies showed

up, commanded by Major Robert I.

Neiman. They "wanted to get right

at the enemy" and Chambers sent

them off to an area held by Companies K and L. Neiman returned in

about a half hour and said, "You

don't need tanks. You need undertakers. I never saw so many dead Japs."

Another large contingent of

Japanese troops was "stacked up" by

On the night of 24-25 July, a Japanese counterattack accompanied by tunks failed completely with heavy losses. Here a

16

Marine inspects the enemy dead near a destroyed tank. Note

the placement of the bullet holes in the helmets in the ditch.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 91047

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87645

For Tinian, as in the Marshall Islands and the Saipan and Guam operations, DUKWs

(amphibian trucks) were loaded with artillery pieces and ammunition at the mount

out area. At the objective beaches, they were driven ashore right to the designated

gun emplacements enabling the gun crews to get their weapons laid in and firing

quickly. Here, an A-frame unloads a 75mm pack howitzer from an Army DLIKW.
the 75mm pack howitzer gunners of

Battery D of the 14th Marines, supported by the .50-caliber machine

guns of Batteries E and F: 'They literally tore the Japanese . . . to pieces:'

Altogether about 600 Japanese were

killed in their attack on the center.

On the left flank, 1st Battalion,

24th Marines, came under attack at

0200 from about 600 Special Naval

Landing Force troops out of the barracks at the Ushi Point airfields.

Company A, hit so hard it was

reduced at one point to only 30 men

with weapons, was forced to draw

reinforcements from engineers,

corpsmen, communicators, and

members of the shore party. Illumination flares were fired over the battlefield, allowing the Marines to use

37mm cannister shells, machine gun

fire, and mortars to good effect. The

fight continued until dawn when

medium tanks from the 4th Tank

Battalion lumbered in to break up the

tast attacking groups. At that point,

many Japanese began using their

grenades to commit suicide.

As the sun rose, 476 Japanese bodies were counted in this sector of the

defensive crescent, most of them in

front of the Company A position.

The last enemy attack that night

hit the right or southern flank of the

Marines beginning at 0330 when six

Japanese tanks (half of the Japanese

tank force on Tinian) clattered up

from the direction of Tinian Town to

attack the 23d Marines position.

They were met by fire from Marine

artillery, anti-tank guns, bazookas,

and small arms. Lieutenant Jim Lucas, a professional reporter who enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly

after the attack on Pearl Harbor and

was commissioned in the field, was

there:

The three lead tanks broke

through our wall of fire. One

began to glow blood-red,

turned crazily on its tracks and

careened into a ditch: A second,

mortally wounded, turned its

machine guns on its tormentors,

firing into the ditches in a last

desperate effort to fight its way

free. One hundred yards more

and it stopped dead in its tracks.

The third tried frantically to

turn and then retreat, but our

men closed in, literally blasting

it apart. . . . Bazookas knocked

out a fourth tank with a direct

hit which killed the driver. The

rest of the crew piled out of the

turret screaming. The fifth

tank, completely surrounded,

attempted to flee. Bazookas

made short work of it. Another

hit set it afire and its crew was

cremated.

The sixth tank was chased off, according to Colonel Jones, by a Marine driving a jeep. Some appraisers

of this action believe only five tanks

were involved. In any case, the destruction of these tanks did not end

the fight on the right flank. Infantry

units of the 50th Regiment continued

to attack in the zone of 2d Battalion,

23d Marines. They were repulsed

and killed in great numbers, largely

through the effective use of 37mm

anti-tank guns using cannister shot.

In "the last hopeless moments of the

assault," Hoffman wrote, "some of the

wounded Japanese destroyed themselves by detonating a magnetic tank

mine which produced a terrific blast:'

From the Japanese standpoint, the

night's work had been a disaster:

1,241 bodies left on the battlefield;

several hundred more may have been

carted away during the hight. Fewer

than 100 Marines were wounded or

killed. "The loss of these [Japanese]

troops;' the historian Frank Hough

has written:

broke the back of the

defense of Tinian. With their

communications shattered by

sustained fire from Saipan and

increasing fire from Tinian itself

the survivors were capable

of only the weakest, most dazed

sort of resistance.. . . Now and

again during the next seven

days, small groups took advantage of the darkness to [launch

night attacksi, but for the most

part they simply withdrew in

A line of skinnishers was the formation normally used at Tinian even where there

was no enemy contact. A platoon from the 2d Marines pushes forward while an

observation plane (OY) circles overhead. High ground in the distance is part of

a long spine extending straight south from Mount Lasso, an objective to be taken.

Marine Corps Historical Collection

17
no particular order until there

remained nowhere to withdraw.

That was a common judgment after the Tinian battle had ended. But

at the time, according to the 4th Division intelligence officer, Lieutenant

Colonel Gooderham McCormick, a

Marine Reserve officer who later became mayor of Philadelphia, things

were not so clear: 'We still believed

[after the counterattack] the enemy

capable of a harder fight . . and

from day to day during our advance

expected a bitter fight that never.

materialized:'

Nevertheless, a lot of hard work

lay ahead. One of the most demanding tasks was the simple but exhausting job of humping through cane

fields in terrific heat, humidity, and

frequent monsoon downpours, fearful not only of sniper fire, mines, or

booby traps, but fearful as well of

fires that could sweep through the

cane fields, incinerating anyone in

their path.

Lieutenant Colonel William W.

"Bucky" Buchanan was the assistant

naval gunfire officer for the 4th Division at Tinian. His career later took

him to Vietnam. After his retirement

as a brigadier general he recalled the

Tinian campaign:

We used the same tactics on

Tinian that we did on Saipan:

that is, a hand-holding, linear

operation, like a bunch of

brush-beaters, people shooting

grouse or something, the idea

being to flush out every man

consistently as we go down,

rather than driving down the

18

main road with a fork and cutting this off and cutting this off

in what I call creative tactics,

you see. But this was the easiest thing and the safest thing to

do. And who can criticize it? It

was successful. Here, again,

what little resistance was left

was pushed into the end of the

island . . . and quickly collapsed.

The grouse-shooting metaphor is

simplistic but even the 4th Division

commander, Major General Clifton

B. Cates, thought the campaign had

its sporting aspects: "The fighting

was different from most any that we

had experienced because it was good

terrain. . . . It was a good clean operation and I think the men really enjoyed it:'

Before the "brush beating" could

Aerial Reconnaissance and Photography

n the months leading up to the invasion, intensive

reconnaissance was undertaken. The first aerial

photos of 1944 had been acquired back in February

when U.S. carrier planes attacked Saipan. Others were obtained in April and May by photo planes based at Eniwetok. These early photographs were of little use to invasion

planners. Their quality was poor and many were taken at

angles that distorted the terrain.

These inadequacies hampered the Saipan planners but

Tinian was another story. "Perhaps no other Pacific island

Marine Corps analysts later concluded, "became so

familiar to the assault forces because of thorough and accurate lphotography andi mapping prior to the landings:'

We took off from Saipan and of course the minute

you were airborne you were over Tinian. I had talked

it over with Muller and told him that the last beach

we would overfly would be the one we were going

to hit. I said, "Let's take a look at a lot of other beaches

first and fly over the interior:' We made passes at

several beaches. I was standing up in a blister where

I could see and my officers had the bomb bays open

and were looking down. We flew around maybe 20

or 30 minutes, and then we made a big loop and came

back over the beaches we were going to land on. I'm

glad we did because we spotted. . . mines in the water

which the Navy got out.

We zoomed in on Mount Lasso, which was the only

mountain on Tinian. The island was just one big cane

field, and Mount Lasso was directly ahead of our

beaches. Muller started pulling out and I began to see

white things zipping by outside the plane. . . . I was

fighting to keep my stomach down because a fast elevator is too much for me. I asked: "What's that?" He

replied, "Twenty millimeter. Where do you want to

go now ?" I said, "Saipan. There are no foxholes up

here:'

A lot of the familiarization came from first-hand observation by division, regimental, and battalion commanders

who used observation planes to conduct their own reconnaissance of the Tinian beaches and inland terrain. Lieutenant Colonel Justice M. Chambers, commander of the

3d Battalion, 25th Marines, described his preinvasion visit

to the island:

There was a lieutenant commander Muller, a naval

aviator, who apparently had a set of roving orders.

He had brought his flight of three Liberators to Saipan . . . . I thought it would be a good idea to take

my company commanders and overfly the beaches

that we're going to use . . . . So the 3rd Battalion

group took the flight and practically all the battalions did the same.

The photographic coverage of Tinian, along with

prisoners and documents captured at Saipan, and other intelligence available to U.S. commanders, made them, according to the official historç "almost as familiar with the

Japanese strength at Tinian as was Colonel Ogata [the

Japanese commanderb"
begin in proper order, three things

needed to be achieved. First, the 2d

Marine Division had to be put

ashore. This task was completed on

the morning of 26 July — Jig plus 2.

Second, Japanese stragglers and

pockets of resistance in the island's

northern sector had to be squashed.

That job, for all practical purposes,

was pretty well completed on the

26th as the 2d Division swept across

the Ushi Point airfields, reached the

east coast, and made a turn to the

south. (Two days later, Seabees had

the Ushi Point fields in operation for

Army P-47 Thunderbolt fighters).

Also on the 26th, the 4th Division

had seized Mount Maga in the center

of the island and had forced Colonel

Ogata and his staff to abandon their

command post on Mount Lasso

which fell to the Marines without a

struggle.

The third objective — to create for

the drive south a skirmish line of infantry and tanks stretching all the

way across the island — was also accomplished on the 26th. The 4th Division lined up in the western half of

the island with the 23d Marines on

the coast, the 24th in the center, and

the 25th on the left flank. The 2d Division lined up with the 2d Marines

on the east coast and the 6th Marines

in the center, tied in to the 25th. The

8th Marines remained in the north to

mop up.

All this was accomplished with

only minor casualties. For 26 July, for

example, the 2nd Division reported

two killed and 14 wounded, The

heaviest losses since the first day and

night of fighting had been sustained

by the 14th Marines, the 4th Division's artillery regiment, in the hours

following the Japanese counterattack.

An enemy shell hit the 1st Battalion's

fire direction center killing the battalion commander (Lieutenant Colonel Harry J. Zimmer), the intelligence officer, the operations officer,

and seven other staff members; 14

other Marines at the battalion headquarters were wounded. Virtually all

Tramping the cane was a tiring work, especially when the direction of the advance

did not parallel the rows of the fields. Each stalk was strong enough to trip a man

careless about where he stepped. Advancing through such a field was fraught with

danger, also, from hidden trip wires attached to demo litions, and from dug-in

Japanese. In addition, the dry cane fields could easily catch fire and trap the Marines.

Marine Corps Historical Collection

19
of the casualties sustained by that

regiment during the Tinian campaign

were taken on this single day, 25 July:

13 of the 14 killed, and 22 of the 29

wounded.

On the morning of 27 July, the

"brush beating" drive to the south began in earnest. General Schmidt's

plan for the first two days of the

drive alternated the main thrust between the two divisions. In the official history of the operation, the

tactic was likened to "a man elbowing his way through the crowd;'

swinging one arm and then the other.

The 2d Division got the heavier

work on the 27th. XXIV Corps Artillery firing from southern Saipan,

softened up suspected enemy positions early in the morning and the division jumped off at 0730. It

advanced rapidly, harassed by

sporadic small arms fire. By 1345 it

had reached its objective, gaining

about 4,000 yards in just over six

hours. The 4th Division moved out

late in the morning against "negligible opposition;' reached its objective

by noon and then called it a day. A

Japanese prisoner complained to his

captors, "You couldn't drop a stick

without bringing down artillery:'

The next morning, 28 July, the 4th

got the "swinging elbow" job. It was

now evident that the remaining

Japanese defenders were rapidly retiring to the hills and caves along the

southern coast. So opposition to the

Marine advance was virtually nil.

The 4th moved more than two miles

in less than four hours with troops

riding on half-tracks and tanks.

Jumping off again early in the afternoon in "blitz fashion;' they overran

20

the airfield at Gurguan Point, led by

Major Richard K. Schmidt's 4th Tank

Battalion, and quit for the day at

1730 after gaining 7,300 yards —a little more than four miles. The Zd Division, given light duty under the

Schmidt plan, moved ahead a few

hundred yards, reached its objective

in a couple of hours and dug in to

await another morning.

General Cates later recalled how he

spurred on his 4th Division troops:

"I said, 'Now, look here men, the

[Hawaiian) island of Maui is waiting

for us. See those ships out there? The

quicker you get this over with, the

quicker we'll be back there: They

almost ran over that island:'

On the 29th General Schmidt

dropped the "elbowing" tactic and ordered both divisions to move as far

and as fast as "practical." Opposition

Marines of the 2d Division find some of the most difficult

terrain on Tinian as they move up towards the top of Mount

Department of Defense Photo (USMC 87900

Lasso, one of the highest points on the island. Tinian, for the

most part, was flat and level, and was under cultivation,
had been so light that preparatory

fires were canceled to save unneeded

withdrawals from the diminshing

supplies of artillery shells left on Saipan and to prevent "waste of naval

gunfire on areas largely deserted by

the enemy:'

The 2d Marines on the eastern terrain ran into pockets of resistance on

a hill at Masalog Point; the 6th Marines encountered a 20-man Japanese

patrol that attempted to penetrate the

regiment's lines after dark. The 25th

took sniper fire as it moved through

cane fields and later in the day engaged in a heavy firefight with

Japanese troops fighting from dugin positions. The Marines suffered

several casualties and one of their

tanks was disabled in this fight. But

the resistance was overcome. The

.24th Marines, operating near the

west coast, ran into Japanese positions that included a series of mutually supporting bunkers. The 4th

rank Battalion reported that the area

"had to be overrun twice by tanks"

before resistance ended.

By nightfall, more than half of

Tinian island was in Marine hands.

Troops of the 4th Division could see

Tinian Town from their foxholes.

This was good for morale but the

night was marred by the weather and

enemy activity. A soaking rain fell

through the night. Enemy mortar

tubes and artillery pieces fired incessantly, drawing counterbattery fire

from Marine gunners. There were

probes in front of the 3d Battalion,

25th Marines, silenced by mortar and

small arms fire; 41 Japanese bodies

were found in the area at daylight.

On 30 July—Jig plus 6—Tinian

Town became the principal objective

of the 4th Division and, specifically,

Colonel Franklin A. Hart's 24th Marines. At 0735 all of the division's artillery battalions laid down preparatory fires in front of the Marine lines.

After 10 minutes, the firing stopped

and the troops moved out. At the

same time, two destroyers and cruisers lying in Sunharon Harbor off the

Tinian Town beaches began an hourlong bombardment of slopes around

the town in support of the Marines.

The regiment's 1st Battalion had advanced 600 yards when it came under heavy fire from caves along the

coast north of the town. With the

help of tanks and armored amphibians operating offshore this problem

was overcome. Flamethrowing tanks

worked over the caves, allowing engineers to seal them up with demolition charges. In one cave, a 75mm

gun was destroyed.

The regiment entered the ruins of

Tinian Town at 1420. Except for one

Japanese soldier who was eliminated on the spot, the town was deserted. After searching through the

rubble for snipers and documents,

the Marines drove on to the 0-7 line

objective south of town. Their

greatest peril was from mines and

booby traps planted in beach areas

and roads.

As the 24th moved south, the 25th

Marines were seizing Airfield NumI3Gen Merritt A. Edson, (with binoculars) assistant division

commander of the 2d Marine Division, follows the progress

of his troops not far from the scene of action. Gen Edson was

awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism on Guadalcanal.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87824

21
ber 4 on the eastern outskirts of Tinian Town. The unfinished facility, a

prisoner revealed, was being rushed

to completion to accommodate relief

planes promised by Tokyo. Only one

aircraft was parked on the crushedcoral air strip — a small, Zero-type

fighter. Flying suits, goggles, and

other equipment were found in a

supply room.

Enroute to the airfield, the 25th

had taken light small arms fire and

while crossing the airstrip was mortared from positions to the south.

This was the 25th's last action of the

Tinian campaign. It went into reserve

and was relieved that night by units

of the 23d Marines and the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.

The 2d Division, operating to the

east of the 4th, ran into occasional

opposition from machine gun positions and a 70mm howitzer. The 3d

Battalion, 2d Marines, had the

roughest time. After silencing the

howitzer, it attacked across an open

field and chased a Japanese force into

a large cave where, with the help of

a flame-throwing tank, 89 Japanese

were killed and four machine guns

were destroyed. Soon afterward the

battalion came under mortar fire. "It

is beyond my memory as to the number of casualties the 3d Battalion

suffered at that time;' the unit's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Walter

F. Layer, later reported. "1 personally rendered first aid to two wounded Marines and remember seeing six

or seven Marines who were either

wounded or killed by that enemy

mortar fire. Tanks and half-tracks

took the enemy under fire, destroying the enemy mortars?

These were minor delays. The division reached its objective on time

and was dug in by 1830. About 80

percent of the island was now in

American hands.

The Japanese were now cornered

in a small area of southeastern Tinian. The Marines "had advanced so

rapidly that only four square miles

of the island remained for safe firing

by ships not supporting battalions

[i.e., not with shore spotters]," according to a report on 30 July by Rear

Admiral Harry W. Hill, commander

of the Northern Attack Force.

The Marine commander for the

operation, Major General Schmidt,

saw the end in sight and late on the

afternoon of 30 July issued an operations order calling on the divisions

to drive all the way to the southeast

coastline, seize all territory remaining in enemy hands and "annihilate

the opposing Japanese:'

This was not a trifling assignment;

it produced the heaviest fighting since

the counterattack on the night of Jig

Day. A Japanese warrant officer captured on 29 July estimated that 500

troops of the 56th Naval Guard Force

and from 1,700 to 1,800 troops of the

50th Infantry Regiment remained in

the southeastern area in a battleready condition. American intelligence estimates on 29 July, based on

daily reports from the divisions,

reckoned that 3,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors had been killed or

taken prisoner up to that point, If

that was the case, two-thirds of the

nearly 9,000 Japanese defenders were

still alive on the island.

The terrain occupied by the

Japanese main force was rugged,

difficult to reach or traverse and wellsuited for defense. Outside of Tinian Town the gentle landscape ended,

with the ground rising to a high

plateau 5,000 yards long and 2,000

yards wide, with altitudes higher

than 500 feet. The plateau was rocky

and covered with thick brush. There

were many caves. Along the east

coast, the cliff walls rose steeply and

appeared impossible to scale. The approaches to the plateau were blocked

by many cliffs of this sort as well as

by jungle growth. A road in the

center of the plateau, leading to its

top, was reported by a prisoner to be

mined. The plateau was the enemy's

last redoubt.

It became the object of the most

intense bombardments any Japanese

force had yet experienced to date in

World War II. Marine artillery regiments on the island and the XXIV

Corps Artillery on southern Saipan

fired throughout the night of 30-31

July on the wooded clifflines the Marines would face during their assault.

As a Navy corpsman administers a bottle of plasma to a wounded Marine, the

stretcher bearers wait patiently to carry him on board a landing craft which will

evacuate him to a hospital ship offshore, where he will be given full treatment.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87434

22
At 0600, the battleships Tennessee

and California, the heavy cruiser

Louisville, and the light cruisers

Montpelier and Binninghani began

the first of two sustained bombardments that morning. They fired for

:75 minutes, then halted to allow a 40-

minute strike on the plateau by 126

P-47s, North American Mitchell B-25

bombers, and Grumman Avenger

torpedo bombers from the escort carrier Kit kun Bay. The planes dropped

69 tons of explosives before the offshore gunfire resumed for another 35

minutes. All told, the battleships and

cruisers fired approximately 615 tons

of shells at their targets. Artillerymen

of the 10th Marines fired about 5,000

rounds during the night; 14th Marines gunners fired 2,000. The effect,

one prisoner said, was "almost unbearable:'

As you faced south on that morning, the regimental alignments from

west coast to east coast were the 24th,

23d, 8th, 6th and 2d Marines. The

task of the 24th was to clear out the

western coastal area, with one battalion assigned to seizure of the

plateau. The 2d Marines was to seal

off the east coast at the base of the

plateau. The 6th, 8th, and 23d Marines would assault the cliff areas and

make their way to the top of the

plateau.

The 24th, jumping off with the 23d

at 0830, moved into the coastal plain

and immediately encountered brush

and undergrowth so dense that tank

operations were severely hampered.

As compensation, armored amphibians lying offshore provided heavy

fires against enemy beach positions

and covered the regiment's right flank

as it made its way down the coast.

A platoon-size Japanese beach unit

launched a foolish counterattack on

Marine Corps Historical Collection

Some badly wounded casualties died of their severe injuries after having been evacuated from Tinian. Those who succumbed to their wounds were buried at sea.

Two Marines escort two apparently healthy, hearty, and willing Japanese prisoners to be turned in at the POW stockade

in the rear of the fighting. Most of the prisoneis taken on Tinian, however, were civilian workers rather than military men.

Department ol Defense Photo (USMC) 91365

23
the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines at

about 1000. The Japanese were annihilated. Later, flame-throwing

tanks burned off brush and undergrowth concealing Japanese riflemen.

On the regiment's left flank, the 3d

Battalion was in assault at the base

of the plateau. It encountered minimal opposition until about 1600

when it began to receive rifle and

machine gun fire from cliff positions.

Tanks were called on but soon found

themselves mired in a minefield and

were held up for several hours while

engineers cleared 45 mines from the

area.

The 1st Battalion, 23d Marines,

encountered similar troubles. As the

regiment approached the plateau, it

ran into dense small arms fire from

two positions —a small village at the

base of the cliff and from the cliff face

itself. It also began receiving fire

from a "large-caliber weapon:' Lacking tank support the Marines pressed

forward, running a few yards, diving

on their bellies, getting up, and advancing again. Medium tanks finally

came up in search of this elusive and

well-concealed weapon. One of them

took six quick hits from the concealed position of this Japanese gun.

A second tank was hit but in the

process the enemy position was discovered: a camouflaged, concrete

bunker housing a 47mm antitank

gun and 20 troops, all of whom were

killed.

The 2d Battalion of the 23d had

similar difficulties. After coming under fire from riflemen and machine

gunners, one of its supporting tanks

was disabled by a mine. After its

crew was taken to safety by another

tank, the disabled vehicle was seized

by the Japanese and used as an arDepartment of Defense Photo (USMC) 152074

Tank-infantry tactics perfected in prior operations proved successful on Tinian as

well. The riflemen served as the eyes of the armored vehicle and would direct the

tank crewmen over a telephone mounted in a box on the rear of the tank.

IVlajGen Clifton B. Cates, center, visits the command post of

24th Marines commander Col Franklin A. Hart. On the left is

LtCol Charles D. Roberts, S-3 of the 24th Marines. Gen Cates

would become the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 143760

24
mored machine gun nest. Other

eanks soon took it out. The 23d also

].ost that day two 37mm guns and a

one-ton truck belonging to the regiment's half-track platoon. The guns

and the vehicle got too far out front,

came under heavy fire and were

abandoned. A detail from the platoon later retrieved one of the guns,

removed the breech block from the

other one and brought back the

.50-caliber machine gun from its

mounting on the truck.

Late in the afternoon, the 1st Battalion, 23d Marines, and a company from the 2d Battalion gained a

foothold on top of the plateau; the

3d Battalion soon followed. To their

left, the 3d Battalion, 8th Marines,

shrugged off small arms fire early in

the day and reached the base of the

cliff where it stalled for the night.

The 1st Battalion had better luck.

Company A made it to the top of the

plateau at 1650, followed by a platoon from Company C. Soon after,

the whole battalion was atop the hill.

It was followed by Companies E and

C of the 2d Battalion.

The Company C commander was

Captain Carl W. Hoffman, who later

wrote the definitive histories of the

Saipan and Tinian campaigns. In an

oral history interview, he described

his own experiences on top of the

plateau the night of 31 July:

By the time we got up there

there wasn't enough daylight left to get ourselves

properly barbed-wired in, to get

our fields of fire established, to

site our interlocking bands of

machine gun fire —all the things

that should be done in preparing a good defense.

By dusk, the enemy commenced a series of probing attacks. Some Japanese intruded

into our positions. It was a completely black night. So, with

Japanese moving around in our

positions, our troops became

very edgy and were challenging

everybody in sight. We didn't

have any unfortunate incidents

of Marines firing on Marines

[because they] were wellseasoned by this point . As the night wore on, the intensity of enemy attacks started

to build and build and build.

They finally launched a full

scale banzai attack against [our]

battalion . . . . The strange

thing the Japanese did here was

that they executed one wave of

Tinian Town was made a shambles because U.S. commanders

knew that the enemy was well emplaced, dug in, and expected landings on the beaches fronting the town. As a result, they

directed a large share of the pre-Jig Day bombardment into

the waterfront and surrounding area, thereby reinforcing

Japanese belie ft that this is where the Marines would land.

Marine Corps Historical Collection

25
attack after another against a

37mm position firing cannister

ammunition . That gun just stacked up

dead Japanese . . . As soon as

one Marine gunner would drop

another would take his place.

[Eight of 10 men who manned

the gun were killed or wounded]. Soon we were nearly

shoulder-high with dead

Japanese in front of that

weapon . . . . By morning we

had defeated the enemy.

Around us were lots of dead

ones, hundreds of them as a

matter of fact. From then on

• . we were able to finish the

rest of the campaign without

difficulty - . People have

often said that the Tinian campaign was the easiest campaign

in the Pacific . For those Marines who were

in that 37mm position up on

the escarpment, Tinian had to

be the busiest campaign within

the Pacific war.

Hoffman had another lively experience before leaving the island. He

was a trumpet addict and carried his

horn with him all through the Pacific war:

For Tinian, I didn't take any

chances such as sending my

horn ashore in a machine gun

cart or a battalion ambulance.

I had it flown over to me. One

evening, my troops were in a little perimeter with barbed wire

all around us on top of the cliff.

My Marines were shouting in

requests: "Oh, You Beautiful

Doll" and "Pretty Baby" and

others. While I was playing

these tunes, all of a sudden we

heard this scream of "banzaL"

An individual Japanese soldier

was charging right toward me

26

and right toward the barbed

wire. The Marines had their

weapons ready and he must

have been hit from 14 different

directions at once. He didn't get

to throw [his] grenade. . . . always cited him as the individual who didn't like my

music. He was no supporter of

my trumpet playing. But . . . I

even continued my little concert

after we had accounted for him.

A final banzai attack on the night

the 37mm guns had their big harvest,

occurred in the early morning hours

of 1 August. A 150-man Japanese

force attacked the 1st Battalion, 28th

Marines, on Hoffman's left flank. After 30 minutes, the main thrust of the

attack was spent and at dawn the

Japanese withdrew; 100 bodies lay in

an area 70 yards square in front of

the position of Company E, 2d Battalion, 28th Marines. The 8th MaA lone member of the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division

patrolling through the outskirts of Tinian Town, pauses at a

Marine Corps HistoriS Collection

toni of a Shinto shrine. The ruins about him give proof of

the heavy shelling visited upon the town before the landing.
rines took 74 casualties that night.

The following morning the two divisions went back to work. The 2d

moved across the plateau toward its

eastern cliffs, the 4th toward cliffs on

the south and west. When they

reached the escarpment's edge, overlooking the ocean, their job was essentially done. At 1855, General

Schmidt declared the island "secure,"

meaning that organized resistance

had ended. But not the killing.

Hundreds of Japanese troops remained holed up in the caves pockmocking the southern cliffs rising up

from the ocean.

On the morning of 2 August, a

Japanese force of 200 men sallied

forth in an attack on the 3d Battalion, 6th Marines. After two hours of

combat, 119 Japanese were dead.

Marine losses included the battalion

commander, Lieutenant Colonel John

W. Easley. Shortly afterwords, the

regiment's 2d Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Edmund B. Games,

was hit by 100 Japanese, 30 of whom

were killed before the unit withdrew.

Contacts of this kind continued for

months. By the end of the year,

Colonel Clarence R. Wallace's 8th

Marines, left on Tinian for moppingup operations, had lost 38 killed and

125 wounded; Japanese losses were

500 dead.

Beginning on 1 August, there were

large-scale surrenders by civilians

leaving the caves in which they had

taken refuge. Marine intelligence

officers estimated that 5,000 to 10,000

civilians had been hiding out in the

southeast sector.

Marine Major General James L.

Underhill, who took command of the

island as military governor on 10 August, became responsible for the care

and feeding of these civilians. The

flow of civilian refugees began on

August 1, he recalled:

About 500 came through immediately, the next day about

800, then a thousand and then

two thousand and so on in increasing numbers until about

8,000 were in. The remaining

3,000 hid out in caves and dribbled in over a period of months.

About 30 percent adult males,

20 percent adult females, and

This cliff was a formidable obstacle to movement on 31 July.

Cutting practically across the entire island, it provided

problems for both divisions. Here, 2d Division Marines climb

the rockly slopes toward the flat plateau on top. The 1st and

2d Battalions, 8th Marines, spent a busy night (31 July4 August) of the operating holding a road that curled up this slope.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87898

27
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 94350

The end of the battle is in sight as troops of the 24th Marines whose zone ended at the top of the steep cliff seen in this picand tanks of the 4th Tank Battalion comb across the coastal ture, had to retrace its steps in order to reach the lowlands.

plateau at Tinian's extreme southern end. The 23d Marines, Aguijan Island may be seen dimly in the misty background.

This 75mm pack howitzer, nicknamed "Miss Connie," is fir- in southern Tinian. The gun was locked securely in this uninzg into a Japanese-held cave from the brink of a sheer cliff usual position after parts were hand-carried to the cliff's edge.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 94660

28
about 50 percent children.

Many of them were in bad

shape — hungry, wounded, ill

and with few possessions beyond the clothes they were

wearing.

It was estimated that about 4,000

civilians were killed in the bombardments of Tinian and in fighting on

the island. On Saipan, Marines had

been helpless to prevent mass suicides

among the civilian population. They

were more successful at Tinian. Unfortunate incidents occurred—

civilians, for example, dying under

Marine fire after wandering into the

lines at night.

There were also suicides and ritual murders, as indicated in a report

from the 23d Marines on 3 August:

Several freak incidents occurred during the day: (1) Jap

children thrown [by their parents] over cliff into ocean; (2)

[Japanese] military grouped

civilians in numbers of 15 to 20

and attached explosive charges

to them, blowing them to bits;

(3) Both military and civilians

lined up on the cliff and hurled

themselves into the ocean; (4)

Many civilians pushed over cliff

by IJapanesel soldiers.

29

Efforts to prevent incidents of this

kind were generally successful. Marines used amplifiers on land and offshore to promise good treatment to

civilians and soldiers who would surrender peacefully. "Thousands of

civilians;' Hoffman wrote, "many

clad in colorful Japanese silk,

responded to the promises — though

it was plain from the expressions on

their faces that they expected the

worst:'

By 14 August the entire 4th Division had embarked on the long trip

to its base camp on Maui. It had suf-
fered in this brief operation more

than 1,100 casualties, including 212

killed. Its next assignment would be

Iwo Jima.

The 2d Division remained in the

Marianas, setting up a base camp on

Saipan where the 2d and 6th regiments took up residence in midAugust. The 8th Marines remained

on Tinian for mopping-up purposes

until October 25, when the 2d and

3d Battalions moved to Saipan, leaving an unhappy 1st Battalion behind

until its relief at the end of the year.

The campaign for Tinian had cost

the division 760 casualties, including

105 killed. These numbers did not include casualties suffered after the island was "secured" on 1 August.

Japanese military losses, based on

bodies counted and buried, totaled

5,000. Other thousands are assumed

to have been sealed up in caves and

underground fortifications. The

number of prisoners taken was 250

by some counts and 400 by others.

The capture of the Marianas gave

the Army Air Corps the B-29 bases

it needed for the bombing of Japan.

In an impromptu command post set up behind his 8th

Marines, Col Clarence R. Wallace, checks the progress of his

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87678

frontline troops on a situation map. The overhead poncho

provides some protection from Tinian's constant rains.

It was not long after the initial landing that Marines encountered the civilian

population of Tinian. Here Marines bathe a tiny Tinian girl after she and her family

had been removed from a hillside dugout. Following the scrubbing, new clothes were

found for the children and the entire family was taken to a place of safety in the rear

Depariment of Defense Photo (USMC) 90441

30
They were located 1,200 nautical

miles from the home islands of

Japan, a distance ideal for the B-29

with its range of 2,800 miles. Tinian

became the home for two wings of

the Twentieth Air Force. Three

months after the conquest of Tinian,

B-29s were hitting the Japanese mainland. Over the next year, according

to numbers supplied by the Air Force

to historian Carl Hoffman, the B-29s

flew 29,000 missions out of the Mananas, dropped 157,000 tons of explosives which, by Japanese estimates

killed 260,000 people, left 9,200,000

homeless, and demolished or burned

2,210,000 homes.

Tinian's place in the history of warfare was insured by the flight of EnoIa Gay on 6 August 1945. It dropped

Former Marine Corps Combat Correspondent SSgt Federico

Ckiveria looks at photograph of himself giving an interned

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 419222

Tinian child candy 25 years earlier. Claveria participated

in the initial landings on Roi-Namur and Saipan also.

Top commanders gather for the flagraising on 3 August 1944 at the conclusion of Tinian operations. From left are RAdm Harry W. Hill; MajGen Harry

Schmidt; Adm Raymond L. Spruance; LtGen Holland M. Smith; VAdm Richmond

Kelly Turner; MajGen Thomas A. Watson; and MajGen Clifton B. Cates.

Marine Corps Historical Collection

31
a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima.

Two days later a second nuclear

weapon was dropped on Nagasaki.

The next day, the Japanese government surrendered.

In his official history of the 2d Marine Division, Richard W. Johnston

records the reaction when news of

the surrender reached the division at

its base on Saipan:

They looked at Tinian's clean

and rocky coast, at the coral

boulders where they had gone

ashore, and they thought of the

forbidding coasts of Japan — the

coasts that awaited them in the

fall. "That Tinian was a pretty

good investment, I guess;' one

Marine finally said.

The anecdote may be apocryphal. Marine Corps Combat Art Collection

The sentiment is historically true. "Japanese Backyard in Tinian Town," by Gail Zumwalt

The hand salute in its various forms is rendered by those the extreme right is VAdm Richmond K. Turner, commander,

present as the colors are raised over Tin ian on 1 August. At aped itionary/ Northern Attack Force for the Tinian landings.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 152064

32
In addition to the official Marine

Corps histories of the Tinian campaign,

Lt John C. Chapin, The Fourth Marine

Division in World War II (Washington,

August, 1945); John Costello, The Pacific

War (New York, 1981); John Dower,

War Without Mercy: Race and Power in

the Pacific War (New York, 1986); Maj

Carl W. Hoffman, Saipan: The Beginning of the End (Washington, 1950); Maj

Carl W. Hoffman, The Seizure of Tinian (Washington, 1951); Frank Olney

Hough, The Island War: The U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific (Philadelphia,

1947); Jeter A. Isely and Philip A.

C:rowl, The U.S. Marine Corps and Amphibious War (Princeton, 1951); Richard

W Johnston, Follow Mel The Story of

the Second Marine Division in World

War II (New York, 1948); Allen R.

Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of

the United States Marine Corps (New

York, 1991); J. Robert Moskin, The U.S.

Marine Corps Story (Boston, 1992); Carl

W. Proehl (ed.), The Fourth Marine Division in World War II (Nashville, 1988);

Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive:

History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, vol III (Washington, 1966); Ronald H. Spector, Eagle

Against the Sun (New York, 1985).

The transcripts of the following retired Marines interviewed for the Marine

Corps Oral History Program reside in

the Oral History Collection, Marine

Corps Historical Center, Washington

Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. Their

roles at Tinian are as indicated: BGen

William W. Buchanan, assistant naval

gunfire officer, 4th Marine Division; Gen

Cli:Eton B. Cates, commanding general,

4th Marine Division; LtCol Justice M.

Chambers, commanding officer, 3d Battalion, 25th Marines; MajGen Carl W.

Hoffman, commanding officer, Company C, 2d Battalion, 8th Marines; Gen

Robert E. 1-fogaboom, G-3, Northern

Troops Landing Force; MajGen Louis R.

Jones, commanding officer, 23d Marines; BGen Frederick J. Karch, S-3, 14th

Ma:rines; MajGen Wood B. Kyle, commanding officer, 1st Battalion, 2d Marines; MajGen William W. Rogers, chief

of staff, 4th Marine Division; LtGen

James L. Underhill, island commander,

Tinian.

R

ichard Harwood, a journalist and news

executive, retired as deputy managing editor of The Washington Post in 1988. He now

writes an editorial column for The Post which is

distributed nationally by the Los Angeles TimesWashington Post News Service. He served in the

U.S. Marines from 1942 until 1946, and spent 30

months in the Pacific. As a radio operator in the

V Amphibious Corps he participated in four

operations, including Tinian.

In A Different War: Marines in Europe and North Africa, page 32 reports Adm

Hewitt visited the cruiser "Helena (CL-So)" in spring 1946. This cruiser was sunk in

1943. The ship the admiral boarded was its successor, the heavy cruiser Helena

(CA-75). On page 27 of Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam, the 77th Infantry Division patrolled hills to the east, rather than to the west. The date of the

action which merited a Medal of Honor for PFC Harold C. Epperson is 25 June

1944, not July, as stated on page 30 of Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan

945 ifl

WORLD WAR II

ft

/ 'A'

91 W \Aj (I

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the

World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by

the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,

Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance

of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by

a bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband,

Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple

Heart.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS

Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR,

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT

George C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION

Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information

Specialist; Catherine A. ICerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical Center

Building 58, Washington Navy Yard

Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1994

PCN 190 003127 00