You are on page 1of 36

A Close Encounter:

The Marine Landing on Tinian


by Richard Harwood
hree weeks into the heavily fortified administrative and verthorn's Company A. He led 20
battle for Saipan, commercial center. Marines and eight UDT swimmers
there was no doubt On 3 July, VAC's Amphibious Re- ashore. They found a beach near
about the outcome connaissance Battalion, commanded Tinian Town flanked on each side by
and V Amphibious by Captain James L. Jones, was put formidable cliffs. There were many
Corps (VAC) commanders began on alert for reconnaissance of these floating mines and underwater boul-
turning their attention to the next potential landing sites. On 9 July, the ders in the approaches. On the beach
objective — the island of Tinian, day Saipan officially was declared se- itself, double-apron barbed wire had
clearly visible three miles off Saipan's cured, Jones got his operation order been strung. Second Lieutenant
southwest coast. Its garrison of 9,000 from Marine Lieutenant General Hol- Donald K Neff worked his way 30
Japanese army and navy combatants, land M. Smith, commander of Ex- yards inland to locate exit routes for
many of them veterans of the cam- peditionary Troops. His men were to vehicles. Nearby, talkative Japanese
paigns in Manchuria, had been bom- scout out the Tinian beaches and work crews were building pillboxes
barded for seven weeks by U.S. air their fortifications and determine and trenching with blasting charges.
and sea armadas, joined in late June their capacity to handle the landing Neff spotted three Japanese sentries
by massed Marine Corps and Army force and keep it supplied. Accom- on a cliff overlooking the beach; now
artillery battalions on Saipan's panying naval underwater demoli- and then searchlights scanned the
southern coast. The 2d and 4th Ma- tion teams would do the hydro- beach approaches.
rine Divisions, both still in the thick graphic work and locate underwater
of the Saipan fight, had been select- obstacles, natural or man-made.
ed for the assault mission. Captain Jones picked for the job
The crucial question of where they Company A under the command of
would land, however, was still un- Captain Merwin H. Silverthorn, Jr.,
decided. There was strong support the son of a Marine general and
among the planners for a landing on World War I veteran, and Company
two narrow sand strips — code named B, commanded by Firt Lieutenant
White 1 and White 2— on Tinian's Leo B. Shinn. The Navy assigned to
northwest coast; one was 60 yards the mission Underwater (UDI) Team
wide, the other 160. But Vice Ad- 5, led by Lieutenant Commander
miral Richmond K. Turner, overall Draper L. Kauffman, and UIX Team
commander of the Marianas Expedi- 7 under Lieutenant Richard F. Burke.
tionary Force, was skeptical. He They rehearsed the operation on the
leaned toward Yellow Beach, made night of 9-10 July off the beaches of
up of several wide, sandy strips in Saipan's Magicienne Bay. On the
front of Tinian Town, the island's evening of the 10th, the Marine and
Navy units boarded the destroyer
On the Cover: Following the assault transports Gilrner and Stringharn for
waves, 4th Division Marines wade the short trip into the channels
ashore at Tinian from Coast Guard land- separating the two islands.
ing craft against no opposition on the The teams debarked in rubber
beaches. boats at 2030, paddled to within 500
At left: Amphibian tractors and Higgins
boats (LCVPs, landing craft, vehicle and
yards of the beach and swam to their
personnel) leave wakes as they land Ma- destinations. Fortunately, it was a
rines on White Beach 2 and return to as- black night and although the moon
sault shipping off shore to load more rose at 2230, it was largely obscured
troops and supplies. Department of by clouds.
Defense Photo (USMC) 87085 Yellow Beach was assigned to Sil-

:1
time around in a span of little more
than 18 months. The division left
Guadalcanal in February 1943, hav-
ing 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 Tara-
Wa. It sustained 3,200 casualties, in-
cluding 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
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 151969 E. Watson, took a heavy toll of these
An oblique photograph of White Beach 1 was taken before naval gunfire, artillery, men —5,000 wounded, 1,300 dead.
air bombardment, and bulldozers altered its appearance. This 60-yard beach later Watson had earned a reputation at
became the port of entry for most of V Amphibious Corps' heavy equipment.
Saipan as a hard-charging leader.
Silverthorn, Burke, and their men could safely wade ashore through the When the division stalled fighting its
made it back to the Gilmer safely. shallow surf. Members of Kauffman's way up Mount Topatchau, he was
Their impression of Yellow Beach as UDT party confirmed the Marine unimpressed. The historian Ronald
a landing site was distinctly un- findings and reported that "no mines Spector wrote, in the midst of that
favorable. or manmade underwater obstruc- effort, "he was heard shouting over
To the north, at the White Beaches tions were found." a field telephone, 'There's not a god-
assigned to Company B, things had A few hours after the reconnais- damn thing up on that hill but some
not gone well. Strong currents sance team returned from White 2, Japs with machine guns and mortars.
pushed the rubber boats off course. Admiral Turner's objections were Now get the hell up there and get
The team headed for White 1 was withdrawn and a command decision themi'" His assistant division com-
swept 800 yards north of its destina- to use the northern beaches was mander was Brigadier General Mer-
tion and never got ashore. The party made. On 20 July, a time and date for ritt A. "Red Mike" Edson, who was
headed for White 2 wound up on the landing were fixed: 0730 on 24 awarded a Medal of Honor for his
White 1 and reconnoitered the area. July. heroism on Guadalcanal.
Both parties were picked up by the The 4th Division had had a busy,
Gilmer. The next night 10 swimmers if slightly less demanding, year as
from Company A were sent back to well. It went directly into combat af-
reconnoiter White 2 and had a suc- The task of seizing Tinian was as- ter its formation at Camp Pendleton,
cessful trip. signed to the two Marine divisions California, landing on 31 January
The reports on the White beaches on Saipan — the 2d and the 4th. The 1944 in the Marshall Islands where
were encouraging. Although the third division on the island — the Ar- it suffered moderate casualties—
landing areas were very restricted, it my's 27th Infantry—would remain fewer than 800 men — in the capture
was concluded that amphibian trac- on Saipan in reserve. All three had of Roi-Namur. At Saipan its losses
tors (LVTs) and other vehicles could been severely battered during the Sai- reached 6,000, including about 1,000
negotiate the reefs and get ashore, pan campaign, suffering more than dead. The Tinian landing would be
and that troops with little difficulty 14,000 casualties, including nearly its third in a little over six months
could clamber over the low cliffs 3,200 dead. and would be the first under a new
flanking the beaches. Marines forced For the 2d Marine Division, the divisional commander— Major Gen-
to disembark from boats at the reef Tinian battle would be the fourth eral Clifton B. Cates, a well-decorated

2
World War I veteran, who would be- complaint [at] being called upon fore the landing—almost 3,000
come the 19th Commandant of the again so soon:' rounds of 5- to 16-inch shells from
Marine Corps in 1948. the battleships Colorado, Tennessee,
The morale of the troops was sus- and California, the cruiser Cleve-
Still, "the morale of the troops tained by the preinvasion fires direct-
committed to the Tinian operation land, and seven destroyers: Ramey,
ed at Tinian. For Jig minus 1 and Jig Wadleigh, Norman Scott, Ivlonssen,
was generally high;' then-Major Carl Day (Jig being the name given to D
Vi. Hoffman wrote in the official his- Waller, Pringle and Philip. Colorado
Day at Tinian), Rear Admiral Harry had the best day, knocking out with
tory of the battle. "This fact takes on W. 1-1111, commander of the Northern
significance only when it is recalled 60 rounds of 16-inch shells the two
Landing Force, had divided the island 6-inch coastal defense guns the
that the Marines involved had just into five fire support sectors, assign-
survived a bitter 25-day struggle and Japanese had emplaced on the west
ing specific ships to each. His pur- coast near Faibus San Hilo Point,
that, with only a fortnight lapse (as
pose was two-fold: destruction and guns that easily could have covered
distinguished from a fortnight rest),
deception to confuse and deceive the
they were again to assault enemy- Japanese as to the landing intentions the White Beaches.
held shores . . [Their] spirit
. .
of the Marines. Firing on the White Beach area it-
was revealed more in a philosophical self was minimal for purposes of de-
shrug, accompanied with a 'here-we- Tinian Town, under this scheme, ception and for lack of suitable tar-
go-again' remark, than in a resentful got the heaviest pounding the day be- gets. The cruiser Louisville fired 390

3
rine Division troops. Rations for
three days, water and medical sup-
plies, ammunition, vehicles, and
other equipment had been pre-
loaded, beginning on 15 July The
troops were going to travel light: a
spoon, a pair of socks, insect repel-
lant, 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 Am-
phibious 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 divi-
sion 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 accommo-
date battalions landing abreast,
much less divisions. Instead, the as-
sault troops would land by columns
— squads, platoons, and companies.

The 2d Division would follow on


rounds into the area before calling it White Beach 2 accommodated two battalions landing in filet with a single rifle com-
a day pany in the assault. The 25th Marines crossed this 160-yard beach on Jig Day, liter-
There was a lot of air activity on ally unopposed followed by two light artillery battalions and the 23d Marines.
the 23d. At three periods during the Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 150633
day, naval gunfire and artillery bar-
rages were halted to allow massive air
strikes on railroad junctions, pillbox-
es, 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 Ma-

4
General Clifton B. Cates, USMC
lii ton B. Cates, a native Ten- the Basic School, then in the Philadel-
nessean, was commissioned in phia Navy Yard. He took command of
1917, and was sent to France the 1st Marines in May 1942.
with the 6th Marines in World War I. He In World War II, Cates commanded
had outstanding service in five major en- the 1st Marines in the landing on
gagements of the war, and returned to Guadalcanal. After returning to the
the United States a well-decorated young States, he was promoted to brigadier
officer after his tour in the occupation of general. He went back to the Pacific war
Germany. One of his early assignments in mid-1944 to take command of the 4th
following the war was as aide to Major Marine Division in time for the Tinian
General Commandant George Barnett. operation. He also led it in the Iwo Jima
During his more than 37 years as a Ma- assault, and was decorated at the end of
rine, Cates was one of the few officers the fighting with his second Distin-
who held commands of a platoon, a guished Service Medal. Part of the cita-
company, a battalion, a regiment, and tion accompanying the medal reads:
a division in combat. He was the 19th "Repeatedly disregarding his own per- On 1 January 1948, General Cates
Commandant of the Marine Corps at the sonal safety, Major General Cates took over as Commandant of the Ma-
outset of the Korean War. traversed his own front lines daily to ral- rine Corps, remaining until 31 Deçem-
His assignments during the interwar ly his tired, depleted units and by his un- ber 1951, when he reverted to the three
years consisted of a combination of daunted valor, tenacious perseverance, stars of a lieutenant general and began
schooling, staff assignments, and com- and staunch leadership in the face Qf his second tour as Commandant of the
mand, such as his tour as battalion com- overwhelming odds, constantly inspired Marine Corps Schools at Quantico, Vir-
mander in the 4th Marines, then in his stout-hearted Marines to heroic effort ginia. General Cates retired on 30 June
Shanghai. In 1940, he took command of during critical phases of the campaign." 1954. He died on 4 June 1970.

after taking part in the massive feint Tinian the average strength was
off the beaches of Tinian Town, hop- down by more than 35 percent to
ing to tie down the main Japanese 565. The first troop ships moved out of
defense forces and spring the surprise For all these reasons — combat f a-
Saipan's Charan Kanoa harbor at
of a landing over the lightly defend- 0330, 24 July. They were the trans-
tigue, heavy losses during previous
ed northern beaches. weeks and months, and under- ports Knox, Calvert, Fuller, Bell,
Heyv,ood, and John Land. They
To give the 4th more punch im- strength units — the Marines on Tin-
mediately after landing, the 2d was were carrying the 2d and 8th Marines
ian would play a cautious game. (infantry regiments) of the 2d Marine
stripped of some of its firepower, Admiral Turner had said he would
such as tank and artillery units. It Division on a mission of deception
give them two weeks to seize the is-
would, accordingly, be at the lowest land. Major General Harry Schmidt,
that turned out to be far bloodier
strength at Tinian of any Marine di- than the White Beach landings and
who relieved Lieutenant General Hol-
vision involved in an amphibious far bloodier than anyone had antic-
land M. Smith as VAC commander,
operation in World War II. promised to get it done in 10 days. ipated. They had a muscular escort
— the battleship Colorado, the light
Despite these additions, the 4th, In the event, the island was secured
cruiser Cleveland, and the destroyers
too, would be understrength — after nine days. In retrospect,
Ratney, Norman Scott, Wadleigh,
"skinny" was the descriptive word analysts say the operation could have
and Monssen.
used by Lieutenant Colonel Justice been finished off sooner by more ag-
M. "Jumping Joe" Chambers, com- gressive tactics. Time, however, was The convoy moved into Sunharon
mander of the 3d Battalion, 25th Ma- no great factor; the relatively slow Harbor opposite Tinian Town just
rines, who was to earn a Medal of pace of the operation probably kept before dawn. A few minutes after
Honor in the Iwo Jima operation lit- casualties at a minimum and reduced 0600, the Calvert began lowering its
tle more than six months later. The the probabilities of troop fatigue. landing craft and by 0630 all 22 of
division's infantry battalions had Tinian was easy on the eyes, but the its boats were in the water. Marines
received only one replacement draft heat and humidity were brutal, the climbed down the cargo nets. Within
after the Saipan fighting. At full cane fields were hard going, and it a half hour, 244 Navy and Army
strength they averaged 880 men; at was the season of monsoons. planes began strafing and bombing

S
runs paying particular attention to avoid casualties, ordered the boats to preinvasion surveillance and prepara-
Tinian Town. Shells and rockets from withdraw and reform. A second run tory fires. Within 15 minutes, the
battleships, heavy and light cruisers, started and immediately drew fire Japanese gunners scored 22 direct hits
destroyers, and 30 gunboats saturat- from the shore; several boats were on Colorado and six direct hits on
ed the beaches. The massed artillery sprayed with shell fragments. But the destroyer Norman Scott, which
battalions on southern Saipan thun- they continued on to within 400 was attempting to protect the battle-
dered in with their 105s and 155s. yards of the beach before turning ship. Casualties among the crews and
After a half-hour of this furious back. Marine detachments on the two ships
bombardment, the LCVPs (landing While the small boats engaged in were heavy: 62 killed and 223
craft, vehicle and personnel) from this maneuver, the battleship Colora- wounded. Ten Marines were among
Calvert began their run toward the do came under fire at a range of 3,200 the dead, 31 were among the wound-
beach at Tinian Town, receiving yards from two 6-inch naval guns ed. Colorado was through for the
heavy artillery and mortar fire from near Tinian Town, guns that had day and limped off back to Saipan.
the shore. Admiral Hill, seeking to gone undetected during the weeks of The Japanese battery survived for

6
White Beach Two to the 25th. In the
FIRE SUPPORT vanguard for the 24th was Company
Fire Support Itnhl I (1340 1) E of the 2d Battalion —200 men com-
Poor Admiral Jesse B.Qldendorl
V manded by Captain Jack F. Ross, Jr.
Laded lie (CA)
Conway (001 Company A of the 1st Battalion,
ho ton I DO)
Sigournep (00) FIRE SUPPORT SECTOR 5 commanded by Captain Irving
Fire Supper? Unit 5 11720 * Schechter, followed and by 0820 the
Poor Admiral Robert W.HeylBr
entire 2d Battalion, commanded by
Moolpelier (CL)

Fe lou. Sec tIne. 5.10*


New Orleans (CA)
Helney Powell (DO)
Major Frank A. Garretson, was
Pt.
Pr Stocheam (DO)
Twining (do)
ashore.
FIRE SUPPORT SECTOR 2
Almost simultaneously, two bat-
Fire Sepper I Unit 2 (2250 *
Ceptoin Thomas B. I nglis talions of the 25th Marines loaded
Birmi nglrcm (CL) into 16 LVTs landed in columns of
Mo Dermut (00)
McGowan (00)
TINIAN Macaloe t companies on White Beach 2. The 2d
Rershae (00)
Gnrgson Pt
Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel
Lewis C. Hudson, Jr., was on the
right; the 3d Battalion (Lieutenant
FIRE SUPPORT SECTOR 3 FIRE SUPPORT SECTOR 4 Colonel Chambers) was on the left.
\
Fire Support Unit 3 I 32BO * FIre Support Unit 4 (2350 *1 The units of the 24th, loaded into
Rear Admiral Theodore 0. Ruddools, Jr. Rear Admirol Howard F. Kiogirnon
24 LVTs, crossed the line of departure
Colorodu I ORB I Tennessee (CBS)
Clo,tlosd (CL) Colilornio (ORB) —3,000 yards offshore—at 0717.
Remoy (DO) Wailer (DO)
Wad leigh I DO) Pr inglo (DO) Ahead of them, 30 LCIs (landing
Norman Scott (DO) PhIl 0100)
Monsoen (DO) tote Pt craft, infantry) and a company of the
2d Armored Amphibian Battalion,
lreundslirodonJi-minuetondJig-Dap commanded by Lieutenant Colonel
Reed M. Fawell, Jr., raked the
FIRE SUPPORT SECTORS FORIIG-MINUSt AND JIG-DAY
beaches with barrage rockets and au-
a o 4 tomatic cannon fire. On the 26-min-
aol.,? MILEs ute run to the beach, the troop-laden
LVTs took scattered and ineffectual
four more days until destroyed by the destroy beach mines. The mission rifle and machine gun fire.
battleship Tennessee. failed because of a squall. The floats At! White 1, members of a small
The losses sustained by the two scattered, the explosives were lost Japanese beach detachment, holed
ships exceeded those suffered that and a few hours later, Marines paid up in caves and crevices, resisted the
day by the Marine landing force on a price for this aborted mission. landing with intense small arms fire.
the northwestern beaches. But the To compensate for the failure of But they were silenced quickly by
feint served its purpose. It froze in the UEYT team, fire support ships ly- Company E gunners.
place around Tinian Town a whole ing off the White Beaches — the bat- Within an hour, the entire 1st and
battalion of the 50th Infantry Regi- tleships California and Tennessee, the 2d Battalions of the 24th were ashore
rnent and various elements of the heavy cruiser Louisville, and four on White 1, preparing to move in-
56th Naval Guard Force. And it con- destroyers — blasted away at the land-
land. The 2d Battalion encountered
vinced the Japanese commander, ing areas. Air strikes were then or- sporadic artillery, mortar, and small
Colonel Kiyochi Ogata, that he had dered at about 0630 and observers arms fire during the first 200 yards
thwarted an invasion. His message to claimed that five of the 14 known of its advance. After that, Garretson
Tokyo described how his forces had beach mines had been destroyed. A later said, the battalion had a "cake
repelled 100 landing barges. battery of 155mm "Long Tom" guns walk" for the rest of the day, gaining
These "barges" were reloaded on
on Saipan fired smokeshells at the 1,400 yards and reaching its 0-1 line
the Culvert at 1000 and the convoy
Japanese command post on Mount objective by 1600. He occupied the
steamed north to the White Beaches
Lasso and also laid smoke in the western edge of Airfield No. 3 and
woods and on the bluffs just beyond cut the main road linking Airfield
where 4th Division troops had land-
ed after a mishap in their planning. the beaches to obstruct Japanese ob- No. 1 with the east coast and
An underwater demolition team us- servation. southern Tinian. Only occasional
ing floats carrying explosives swam small arms fire was encountered be-
to White Beach 2 shortly before The assault plan assigned White fore the battalion dug in for the
dawn to blast away boulders and Beach 1 to the 24th Marines and night.
7
Artillery
Groupments
A,8 P.C
I
H-Hour
0740 Ushi Point
Floolinq Channel
/ Reserve 3 Miles Wide
I

Fai bus San Asigo Point


HilO Point
YELLOW
BEACH

FBH I.

Masolog Point

T IN IAN
\•E
Gurguon
' Point

I
Ti,ian

'DEMONSTRATION 8 N

Marpo Point
\ BLUE e8cH
Sunrise (O57))

Lob Point

PLANS FOR LANDING


0 2000 6000 '0..000

YARDS

RD 748

On Garretson's left, the 1st Battal- surrounding area had been method- automatic weapons emplaced in pill-
ion, commanded by Lieutenant ically seeded with mines which boxes, caves, fortified ravines, and
Colonel Otto Lessing, was slowed by neither ULIT teams nor offshore gun- field entrenchments. Two 47mm guns
heavy fires from cave positions and ners had been able to destroy. It took in particular kept the Marines back
patches of heavy vegetation. six hours to clear them out and in the on their heels. They finally bypassed
Flamethrower tanks were sent up process three LVTs and a jeep were these troublesome positions. Later
against these positions, but the blown up. The beach defenses also waves took them out, leaving 50
Japanese held on. As a result, Less- included a sprinkling of booby traps dead Japanese in the gunpits.
ing pulled up late in the afternoon which had to be dealt with — watches The 3d Battalion commander,
400 yards short of his objective. This and cases of beer, for example, all Lieutenant Colonel Chambers, later
left a gap between his perimeter and wired to explode in the hands of care- remembered a lot of confusion on the
Garretson's. To fill it, the regiment's less souvenir hunters. beach, 'the confusion you [always]
3d Battalion, waiting in reserve at the Behind the beach, troops from gel when you land, of getting the or-
beach, was called up. Ogata's 50th Regiment put up a ganization together again:' One of his
Almost simultaneously, the 25th vigorous defense with mortars, anti- company commanders, for example,
ran into problems. The beach and tank and anti-boat guns, and other was killed a half-hour after landing
8
Tinian Defense Forces
apanese military fortification of Tinian and other with demolition charges but it is unknown whether Kakuda
islands in the chain had begun — in violation of the was inside.
League of Nations Mandate—in the 1930s. By 1944, the Admiral Kakuda in any case took no part in directing the
Tiniari garrison numbered roughly 9,000 army and navy per- Japanese resistance. For purposes of defending the island, com-
sonnel, bringing the island's total population to nearly 25,000. mand of both army and navy forces was assumed by Colonel
The 50th Infantry Regiment, detached from the 29th Div i- Ogata, but co-operation between the two service branches was
sion on Guam, was the principal fighting force. It had been less than complete. Frictions were reflected in diaries found
stationed near Mukden, Manchuria, from 1941 until its trans- among the Japanese documents captured on Tinian. A soldi-
fer in March 1944 to Tinian. Many of its troops were vete- er in the 50th Regiment's artillery battalion wrote:
rans of the Manchurian campaigns. The regiment was
commanded by Colonel Kiyoshi [also spelled "Keishi"] Oga- 9 March —The Navy stays in barracks buildings
ta and consisted of three 880-man infantry battalions, a and has liberty every night with liquor to drink and
75mm mountain artillery battalion equipped with 12 guns, makes a big row.
engineer, communication, and medical companies, plus a We, on the other hand, bivouac in the rain and
headquarters and various specialized support units, includ- never get out on pass. What a difference in discipline!
ing a company of 12 light tanks and an anti-tank platoon. 12 June—Our AA guns [manned by the Navy]
He also had a battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment with spread black smoke where the enemy planes weren't.
a strength of about 900 men. Altogether, slightly more than Not one hit out of a thousand shots. The Naval Air
5,000 army troops were assigned to the island's defense. Group has taken to its heels.
The principal navy unit was the 56th Naval Guard Force, 15 June —The naval aviators are robbers. . When
.

a 1,400-man coastal defense unit, supplemented by four con- they ran off to the mountains, they stole Army pro-
struction battalions with a combined strength of 1,800 men. visions .
Other naval units, totaling about 1,000 men, included ground
The defenses of Tinian were dictated by the geography of
elements of seven aviation squadrons and a detachment of
the island. It is encircled by coral cliffs which rise from the
the 5th Base Force.
coastline and are a part of the limestone plateau underlying
The navy personnel —about 4,200 altogether—were under the island. These cliffs range in height from 6 to 100 feet;
the immediate command of Captain Oichi Oya. Both Oya and breaks in the cliff line are rare and where they occur are nar-
Ogata were outranked on the island by Vice Mmiral Kakuji row, leaving little beach space for an invasion force. Along
Kakuda, commander of the 1st Air Fleet with headquarters the entire coastline of Tinian, only four beaches were worthy
on Tinian. But Kakuda, as the invasion neared, had no air of the name.
fleet to command. Of the estimated 107 planes based at Tini- The largest and most suitable for use by an amphibious
an's air fields, 70 had been destroyed on the ground early in force was in front of Tinian Town in Suharon Harbor. It con-
June by U.S. air strikes. By the time of the Tinian landing on sisted of several wide, sandy strips. The harbor was mediocre
24 July, none of Kakuda's planes were operative. but provided in fair weather limited anchorage for a few ships
Kakuda had a bad reputation. He was, by Japanese physi- which could load and unload cargo at two piers available at
cal standards, a hulking figure: more than six feet tall, weigh- Tinian Town.
ing more than 200 pounds. "He willingly catered:' Hoffman From the beginning, Colonel Ogata assumed that this beach
wrote, "to his almost unquenchable thirst for liquor; he lacked would be the first choice of the Americans. Of the roughly
the fortitude to face the odds arrayed against him at Tinian." 100 guns in fixed positions on the island — ranging from 7.7mm
Historian Frank Hough called him "a drunk and an exceed- heavy machine guns to 6-inch British naval rifles — nearly a
ingly unpleasant one, from all accounts:' third were assigned to the defense of Tinian Town and its
On 15 July, nine days before the invasion, Kakuda and his beaches and to the airfield at Gurguan Point, two-and-a-half
headquarters group attempted to escape via rubber boats to miles northwest of the town. Within a two-mile radius of the
Aguijan Island where they hoped to rendezvous with a town were the 2d Battalion of the 50th Infantry Regiment,
Japanese submarine. This effort failed. He tried again on five 1,400 men of the 56th Naval Guard Force, a tank company
successive nights with the same results, finally abandoning the of the 18th lnfantry Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 135th
effort on 21 July. He fled with his party from Tinian Town Infantry Regiment, which had been designated as the mobile
to a cave on Tinian's east coast where they awaited their fate. counterattack force.
A Japanese prisoner who described Kakudas escape efforts Their area of responsibility extended to Laslo Point, the
assumed he had committed suicide after the American land- southernmost part of the island and, on the east, to Masalog
ing, but this was never verified. Toward the end of the battle Point. It was designated the "Southern Sector" in Ogata's
for Tinian, one of Kakuda's orderlies led an American patrol defense plan.
to the cave. The patrol was fired upon and two Marines were The remainder of the island was divided into northeastern
wounded. A passing group of Marine pioneers sealed the cave and northwestern sectors. The northeastern sector included

9
the lishi Point airfields and a potential landing beach 125 yards ian Town and Asiga Bay, but also for a counterattack
wide south of Asiga Point on the east coast of the island. In in the event the Americans were to invade across the White
this sector, between 600 and 1,000 navy personnel were sta- Beaches.
tioned around the lishi Airfields. The 2d Battalion of the 50th In each of the three sectors, according to his battle plan,
Infantry Regiment, along with an engineer group, was sta- commanders were to be prepared to "destroy the enemy at the
tioned inland of Asagi Point. The northwestern sector con- beach, but [also] be prepared to shift two-thirds of the force
tained two narrow strips of beach 1,000 yards apart. One of elsewhere:' His reserve force was to "maintain fortified posi-
them was 60 yards wide and the other about 160. They were tions, counter-attack points [andi maintain anti-aircraft ob-
popular with Japanese civilians. The sand was white and the servation and fire in its area:' The "Mobile Counterattack
water was swimmable. They were known locally as the White Force" must "advance rapidly to the place of landings, depend-
Beaches and that is what they were called when they were ing on the situation and attack:' In the event of
chosen — to the great surprise of the Japanese — as the Ameri- successful landings his forces would "counterattack to the water
can invasion route. and . . destroy the enemy on beaches with one blow, espe-
This sector was defended very modestly by a single com- cially where time prevents quick movement of forces within
pany of infantry, an antitank squad, and, about 500 yards the island:' If things were to go badly, "we will gradually fall
northeast of the White Beaches, gun crews situated in emplace- back on our prepared positions in the southern part of the
ments containing one 37mm antitank gun, one 47mm anti- island and defend them to the last man:'
tank gun, and two 7.7mm machine guns. Some of these orders were contradictory and others were
Ogata established his command post in a cave on Mount impossible of execution. But despite the odds against them —
Lasso in the center of the northern region, roughly bereft of air or sea support and confronted by three heavily
equidistant — a little over two miles — from beaches on either armed divisions only three miles away on Saipan — the fight-
side of the island. ing spirit of the Japanese forces had not been broken by 43
He issued on 25 June an operation order saying "the enemy days of the heaviest bombardment, up to then, of the Pacific
on Saipan can be expected to be planning a landing on Tini- war. One of the men of the 50th Infantry Regiment wrote in
an. The area of that landing is estimated to be either Tinian his diary on 30 June: 'We have spent twenty days under un-
Harbor or Asiga Harbor Eon the northeast coastJ.' Three days ceasing enemy bombardment and air raids but have suffered
later he followed up with a "Defense Force Battle Plan" which only minor losses. Everyone from the Commanding Officer
outlined only two contingencies: to the lowest private is full of fighting spirit:' His
(A) In the event the enemy lands at Tinian Harbor. entry for 19 July, five days before the American landings, was
(B) In the event the enemy lands at Asiga Bay. upbeat: "How exalted are the gallant figures of the Force
Commander, the Battalion Commander, and their subor-
On 7 July Ogata issued a "Plan for the Guidance of Battle" dinates, who have endured the violent artillery and air
ordering his men to be prepared not only for landings at Tin- bombardment:'

and it took a while to get a replace- reserve during the landing of the 24th downs in which Jones at crucial times
ment on scene and up to speed. Then and 25th. At 0730, the troops were was out of touch with the division
there was the problem of the mines ordered below to board LVTs parked and his battalions.
and a problem with artillery fire cheek to jowl on the tank decks. In addition to botched radio com-
from the Japanese command post on Their engines were running, spewing munications, Jones was stuck in an
Mount Lasso, two-and-a-half miles forth carbon monoxide. Experience LVT with a bad engine; it took him
away. had shown that troops cooped up seven hours to get ashore with his
By late afternoon, Chambers' bat- under these conditions for more than staff, leading to a division complaint
talion had reached its objective 1,500 30 minutes would develop severe about the tardiness of his regiment.
yards inland in the center of the line headaches, become nauseous, and The division noted that "fortunately
and had tied in on its left flank with begin vomiting. no serious harm was done by [the]
Garretson of the 24th. The other bat- To avoid that problem and in the delay;' but at the end of the opera-
talions of the 25th came up short of absence of a launch order, the tion Jones left the division. He was
their 0-1 line, creating before sun- regimental commander, Colonel promoted to brigadier general and as-
down a crescent-shaped beachhead Louis R. Jones, soon unloaded his signed as assistant division com-
3,000 yards wide at the shoreline and men and sent them topside. They mander of the 1st Marine Division
bulging inland to a maximum depth returned to the tank decks at 1030 for the Okinawa landings.
of 1,500 yards. when an order to load and launch f i- A similar muck-up occurred in-
The day's greatest confusion sur- nally was received. The regiment de- volving the 2d Marine Division. Af-
rounded the landing of the 23d Ma- barked and eventually got ashore ter the feint at Tinian Town, the
rines. The regiment had been held on beginning at 1400 despite an incredi- division sailed north and lay offshore
LSTs (landing ships, tank) in division ble series of communication break- of the White Beaches through the
10
day. At 1515, the landing force com- tillery two dozen half-tracks mount- pected. Barbed wire, preloaded on
mander, Major General Harry ing 75mm guns, and 48 medium and amphibian vehicles (DUKWs), was
Schmidt, ordered a battalion from 15 flame-throwing tanks which strung all along the division front.
the 8th Marines to land at White found the Tinian terrain hospitable Ammunition was stacked at every
Beach to back up the 24th Marines. for tank operations. The tanks had weapons position. Machine guns
Schmidt wanted the battalion ashore gotten into action early that morn- were emplaced to permit interlock-
at 1600. Because of communication ing, leading the 24th in tank-infantry ing fields of fire. Target areas were
and transport confusion the deadline attacks. They also had come to the assigned to mortar crews. Artillery
was missed. It was 2000 when the aid of the 23d Marines as that regi- batteries in the rear were registered
unit entered in its log '1 . . dug in in ment moved inland to take over the to hit probable enemy approach
assigned position:' division's right flank. The beachhead routes and to fire illuminating shells
itself was of respectable size, despite if a lighted battlefield was required.
On the other hand, the big things
the failure of some units to reach Of great importance, as it turned out,
had gone well in the morning and af-
ternoon. By the standards of Tarawa
their first-day objectives. It extend- was the positioning up front of
ed inland nearly a mile and embraced 37mm guns and cannister ammuni-
and Saipan, casualties were light—iS
defensible territory. On the whole, it tion (antipersonnel shells which fired
dead, 225 wounded. The body count
had not been a bad day's work. large pellets for close-in fighting); in
for the Japanese was 438. Despite the night fighting that followed, they
drizzling rain, narrow beaches, and
inflicted severe losses on the enemy.
undiscovered mines, 15,600 troops At about 1630, the 4th Division
were put ashore along with great commander, General Cates, ordered As the troops dug in to await
quantities of materiel and equipment whatever the night would bring, the
his forces to button up for the night.
that included four battalions of ar- A nighttime counterattack was ex- 24th Marines, backed up by the 1st
11
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87701
By the time the assault waves landed, most, if not all, Japanese sion bombardments. This Japanese navy-type 25mm machine
Leach defense weapons had been destroyed by the preinva- cannon was knocked out before it could disrupt the landings.
Battalion, 8th Marines, occupied the Even enemy weapons, such as this Japanese 120mm type 10 naval dual-purpose
northern half of the defensive cres- gun located not-too-far inland from the invasion beaches, was put out of action,
cent. The 25th and a battalion of the but not before it, and two 6-inch guns, hit the battleship Colorado (BB 45) arid
23d occupied the southern half of the destroyer Norman Scott (DD 690) causing casualties before being destroyed.
Department of Defense Photo (TJSMC) 91349
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 bat-
talions, and other special troops were
on alert.
The Japanese, meanwhile, were
preparing for their counterattack. Be-
cause 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 ene-
my on beaches with one blow, espe-
cially 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 air-
fields. Near Mount Lasso, opposite
13
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 5729S
Attacking Marines hold up their advance in the face of an ex- planes supporting the drive across Tinian. Note the trees bent
ploding Japanese ammunition dump after an attack by Navy over by the force of shock waves caused by the eruption.

the center of the Marine lines, were where the 2d Battalion, 24th Marines Chambers had a vivid memory of
two battalions of the 50th Infantry under Garretson was tied in with the that night:
Regiment and a tank company, about 3d Battalion under Chambers. There was a big gully that ran
1,500 men all told. On the west coast, "While most of these Japanese from the southeast to northwest
facing the Marine right flank, were crept along just forward of the lines:' and right into the western edge
about 250 men from an infantry Carl Hoffman wrote, ' . a two-man
.
of our area. Anybody in their
company of the 50th Regiment, a reconnaissance detail climbed up on right mind could have figured
tank detachment and an anti-tank a battered building forward of the that if there was to be any coun-
squad. 24th Marines and audaciously (or terattacks, that gully would be
South of Mount Lasso, nearly six stupidly) commenced jotting notes used .
miles from the White Beaches, was about, or drawing sketches of, the During the night. . my men
.

the Japanese Mobile Counterattack front lines. This impudent gesture were reporting that they were
Force—a 900-man battalion of the was rewarded with a thundering con- hearing a lot of Japanese chat-
135th Infantry Regiment, equipped centration of U.S. artillery fire." tering down in the gully .
with new rifles and demolition
charges. Its Journey toward the Amphibian tractors line up waiting to discharge their Marine passengers on the
beach. The almost complete devastation of Japanese beachhead defenses, which
northwestern beaches and the Ma- was not entirely expected by the Marines, permitted this peaceful combat landing.
rine lines was perilous. All move- Departnent of Defense Photo (USMC) 93379
ments in daylight were under air
surveillance and vulnerable to
American fire power. But the battal-
ion set out under its commander—a
Captain Izumi — and was hit on
several occasions by unobserved ar-
tillery and naval gunfire. Izumi
pushed on and got to his objective
through skillful use of terrain for for
concealment. At 2230 he began prob-
ing the center of the Marine line
14
Department of Defense Photo (TJSMC) 88088
While some Marines were deposited "feet dry" beyond the ashore in the shallows from the amtracs which brought them
shoreline of the beaches, others had to land "feet wet" wading in from the attack transports seen in the background.
They hit us about midnight in 37mm guns on the left flank machine gun [Cpl Alfred 1. Dai-
K company's area. They hauled and was firing nnister. Two of gle and Pfc Orville H. Showers]
by hand a couple of 75mm my men were manning a These two lads laid out
howitzers with them and when Although frontline Marines appreciated the support of the 1st and 2d Provisional
they got them up to where they Rocket Companies' truck-mounted 4.5-inch rocket launchers, they always dreaded
could fire at us, they hit us very the period immediately following a barrage. The dust and smoke thrown up at that
hard. I think K company did a time served as a perfect aiming point for enemy artillery and mortars which soon
pretty damn good job but followed. Notice the flight of rockets in the upper left hand section of the picture.
about 150, 200 laps managed to Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92269
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 de-
veloped. That's where lit.]
Mickey McGuire . had his
. .

15
100 yards away, then opened
up. The Japanese charged,
screaming, "Banzai7 firing light
machine guns and throwing
hand grenades. It seemed im-
possible 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 posthu-
mously to Daigle and the Silver
Star posthumously to Showers.
Just before daybreak, Chambers
recalled, two tank companies showed
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87645 up, commanded by Major Robert I.
For Tinian, as in the Marshall Islands and the Saipan and Guam operations, DUKWs Neiman. They "wanted to get right
(amphibian trucks) were loaded with artillery pieces and ammunition at the mount at the enemy" and Chambers sent
out area. At the objective beaches, they were driven ashore right to the designated them off to an area held by Compa-
gun emplacements enabling the gun crews to get their weapons laid in and firing
nies K and L. Neiman returned in
quickly. Here, an A-frame unloads a 75mm pack howitzer from an Army DLIKW.
about a half hour and said, "You
in front of their machine gun a A Marine combat correspondent, don't need tanks. You need undertak-
cone of Jap bodies. There was described this action: ers. I never saw so many dead Japs."
a dead Jap officer in with them. IShowers and Daigle] held Another large contingent of
Both of the boys were dead. their fire until the Japanese were Japanese troops was "stacked up" by

On the night of 24-25 July, a Japanese counterattack accom- Marine inspects the enemy dead near a destroyed tank. Note
panied by tunks failed completely with heavy losses. Here a the placement of the bullet holes in the helmets in the ditch.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 91047

16
the 75mm pack howitzer gunners of desperate effort to fight its way anti-tank guns using cannister shot.
Battery D of the 14th Marines, sup- free. One hundred yards more In "the last hopeless moments of the
ported by the .50-caliber machine and it stopped dead in its tracks. assault," Hoffman wrote, "some of the
guns of Batteries E and F: 'They liter- The third tried frantically to wounded Japanese destroyed them-
ally tore the Japanese . . to pieces:'
. turn and then retreat, but our selves by detonating a magnetic tank
Altogether about 600 Japanese were men closed in, literally blasting mine which produced a terrific blast:'
killed in their attack on the center. it apart. . Bazookas knocked
. . From the Japanese standpoint, the
On the left flank, 1st Battalion, out a fourth tank with a direct night's work had been a disaster:
24th Marines, came under attack at hit which killed the driver. The 1,241 bodies left on the battlefield;
0200 from about 600 Special Naval rest of the crew piled out of the several hundred more may have been
Landing Force troops out of the bar- turret screaming. The fifth carted away during the hight. Fewer
racks at the Ushi Point airfields. tank, completely surrounded, than 100 Marines were wounded or
Company A, hit so hard it was attempted to flee. Bazookas killed. "The loss of these [Japanese]
reduced at one point to only 30 men made short work of it. Another troops;' the historian Frank Hough
with weapons, was forced to draw hit set it afire and its crew was has written:
reinforcements from engineers, cremated. broke the back of the
corpsmen, communicators, and The sixth tank was chased off, ac- defense of Tinian. With their
members of the shore party. Illumi- cording to Colonel Jones, by a Ma- communications shattered by
nation flares were fired over the bat- rine driving a jeep. Some appraisers sustained fire from Saipan and
tlefield, allowing the Marines to use of this action believe only five tanks increasing fire from Tinian itself
37mm cannister shells, machine gun were involved. In any case, the des- the survivors were capable
fire, and mortars to good effect. The
truction of these tanks did not end of only the weakest, most dazed
fight continued until dawn when the fight on the right flank. Infantry sort of resistance.. . Now and
.

medium tanks from the 4th Tank units of the 50th Regiment continued again during the next seven
Battalion lumbered in to break up the to attack in the zone of 2d Battalion, days, small groups took advan-
tast attacking groups. At that point, 23d Marines. They were repulsed tage of the darkness to [launch
many Japanese began using their and killed in great numbers, largely night attacksi, but for the most
grenades to commit suicide. through the effective use of 37mm part they simply withdrew in
As the sun rose, 476 Japanese bod- A line of skinnishers was the formation normally used at Tinian even where there
ies were counted in this sector of the was no enemy contact. A platoon from the 2d Marines pushes forward while an
defensive crescent, most of them in observation plane (OY) circles overhead. High ground in the distance is part of
front of the Company A position. a long spine extending straight south from Mount Lasso, an objective to be taken.
The last enemy attack that night Marine Corps Historical Collection
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 Lu-
cas, a professional reporter who en-
listed 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
17
Aerial Reconnaissance and Photography
n the months leading up to the invasion, intensive We took off from Saipan and of course the minute
reconnaissance was undertaken. The first aerial you were airborne you were over Tinian. I had talked
photos of 1944 had been acquired back in February it over with Muller and told him that the last beach
when U.S. carrier planes attacked Saipan. Others were ob- we would overfly would be the one we were going
tained in April and May by photo planes based at Eniwe- to hit. I said, "Let's take a look at a lot of other beaches
tok. These early photographs were of little use to invasion first and fly over the interior:' We made passes at
planners. Their quality was poor and many were taken at several beaches. I was standing up in a blister where
angles that distorted the terrain. I could see and my officers had the bomb bays open
These inadequacies hampered the Saipan planners but and were looking down. We flew around maybe 20
Tinian was another story. "Perhaps no other Pacific island or 30 minutes, and then we made a big loop and came
Marine Corps analysts later concluded, "became so back over the beaches we were going to land on. I'm
familiar to the assault forces because of thorough and ac- glad we did because we spotted. . mines in the water
.

curate lphotography andi mapping prior to the landings:' which the Navy got out.
We zoomed in on Mount Lasso, which was the only
A lot of the familiarization came from first-hand obser-
mountain on Tinian. The island was just one big cane
vation by division, regimental, and battalion commanders
field, and Mount Lasso was directly ahead of our
who used observation planes to conduct their own recon-
beaches. Muller started pulling out and I began to see
naissance of the Tinian beaches and inland terrain. Lieu-
white things zipping by outside the plane. . . I was
.
tenant Colonel Justice M. Chambers, commander of the
fighting to keep my stomach down because a fast ele-
3d Battalion, 25th Marines, described his preinvasion visit
vator is too much for me. I asked: "What's that?" He
to the island:
replied, "Twenty millimeter. Where do you want to
go now ?" I said, "Saipan. There are no foxholes up
There was a lieutenant commander Muller, a naval
here:'
aviator, who apparently had a set of roving orders.
He had brought his flight of three Liberators to Sai- The photographic coverage of Tinian, along with
pan . . .I thought it would be a good idea to take
. prisoners and documents captured at Saipan, and other in-
my company commanders and overfly the beaches telligence available to U.S. commanders, made them, ac-
that we're going to use . . So the 3rd Battalion
. . cording to the official historç "almost as familiar with the
group took the flight and practically all the battal- Japanese strength at Tinian as was Colonel Ogata [the
ions did the same. Japanese commanderb"

no particular order until there booby traps, but fearful as well of main road with a fork and cut-
remained nowhere to withdraw. fires that could sweep through the ting this off and cutting this off
That was a common judgment af- cane fields, incinerating anyone in in what I call creative tactics,
ter the Tinian battle had ended. But their path. you see. But this was the easi-
at the time, according to the 4th Di- est thing and the safest thing to
vision intelligence officer, Lieutenant do. And who can criticize it? It
Colonel Gooderham McCormick, a Lieutenant Colonel William W. was successful. Here, again,
Marine Reserve officer who later be- "Bucky" Buchanan was the assistant what little resistance was left
came mayor of Philadelphia, things naval gunfire officer for the 4th Di- was pushed into the end of the
were not so clear: 'We still believed vision at Tinian. His career later took island . and quickly col-
. .

[after the counterattack] the enemy him to Vietnam. After his retirement lapsed.
capable of a harder fight . . and as a brigadier general he recalled the The grouse-shooting metaphor is
from day to day during our advance Tinian campaign: simplistic but even the 4th Division
expected a bitter fight that never. We used the same tactics on commander, Major General Clifton
materialized:' Tinian that we did on Saipan: B. Cates, thought the campaign had
Nevertheless, a lot of hard work that is, a hand-holding, linear its sporting aspects: "The fighting
lay ahead. One of the most demand- operation, like a bunch of was different from most any that we
ing tasks was the simple but exhaust- brush-beaters, people shooting had experienced because it was good
ing job of humping through cane grouse or something, the idea terrain. . It was a good clean oper-
. .

fields in terrific heat, humidity, and being to flush out every man ation and I think the men really en-
frequent monsoon downpours, fear- consistently as we go down, joyed it:'
ful not only of sniper fire, mines, or rather than driving down the Before the "brush beating" could

18
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 in-
fantry and tanks stretching all the
way across the island — was also ac-
complished on the 26th. The 4th Di-
vision 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 Di-
vision 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 Divi-
sion's artillery regiment, in the hours
following the Japanese counterattack.
An enemy shell hit the 1st Battalion's
fire direction center killing the bat-
talion commander (Lieutenant Col-
onel Harry J. Zimmer), the intelli-
gence officer, the operations officer,
and seven other staff members; 14
other Marines at the battalion head-
quarters were wounded. Virtually all
begin in proper order, three things Tramping the cane was a tiring work, especially when the direction of the advance
needed to be achieved. First, the 2d did not parallel the rows of the fields. Each stalk was strong enough to trip a man
Marine Division had to be put careless about where he stepped. Advancing through such a field was fraught with
ashore. This task was completed on danger, also, from hidden trip wires attached to demo litions, and from dug-in
the morning of 26 July — Jig plus 2. Japanese. In addition, the dry cane fields could easily catch fire and trap the Marines.
Second, Japanese stragglers and Marine Corps Historical Collection
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

19
Department of Defense Photo (USMC 87900
Marines of the 2d Division find some of the most difficult Lasso, one of the highest points on the island. Tinian, for the
terrain on Tinian as they move up towards the top of Mount most part, was flat and level, and was under cultivation,
of the casualties sustained by that sporadic small arms fire. By 1345 it the airfield at Gurguan Point, led by
regiment during the Tinian campaign had reached its objective, gaining Major Richard K. Schmidt's 4th Tank
were taken on this single day, 25 July: about 4,000 yards in just over six Battalion, and quit for the day at
13 of the 14 killed, and 22 of the 29 hours. The 4th Division moved out 1730 after gaining 7,300 yards —a lit-
wounded. late in the morning against "negligi- tle more than four miles. The Zd Di-
On the morning of 27 July, the ble opposition;' reached its objective vision, given light duty under the
"brush beating" drive to the south be- by noon and then called it a day. A Schmidt plan, moved ahead a few
gan in earnest. General Schmidt's Japanese prisoner complained to his hundred yards, reached its objective
plan for the first two days of the captors, "You couldn't drop a stick in a couple of hours and dug in to
drive alternated the main thrust be- without bringing down artillery:' await another morning.
tween the two divisions. In the offi- The next morning, 28 July, the 4th General Cates later recalled how he
cial history of the operation, the got the "swinging elbow" job. It was spurred on his 4th Division troops:
tactic was likened to "a man elbow- now evident that the remaining "I said, 'Now, look here men, the
ing his way through the crowd;' Japanese defenders were rapidly retir- [Hawaiian) island of Maui is waiting
swinging one arm and then the other. ing to the hills and caves along the for us. See those ships out there? The
The 2d Division got the heavier southern coast. So opposition to the quicker you get this over with, the
work on the 27th. XXIV Corps Ar- Marine advance was virtually nil. quicker we'll be back there: They
tillery firing from southern Saipan, The 4th moved more than two miles almost ran over that island:'
softened up suspected enemy posi- in less than four hours with troops On the 29th General Schmidt
tions early in the morning and the di- riding on half-tracks and tanks. dropped the "elbowing" tactic and or-
vision jumped off at 0730. It Jumping off again early in the after- dered both divisions to move as far
advanced rapidly, harassed by noon in "blitz fashion;' they overran and as fast as "practical." Opposition

20
had been so light that preparatory before resistance ended. Tinian Town beaches began an hour-
fires were canceled to save unneeded By nightfall, more than half of long bombardment of slopes around
withdrawals from the diminshing Tinian island was in Marine hands. the town in support of the Marines.
supplies of artillery shells left on Sai- Troops of the 4th Division could see The regiment's 1st Battalion had ad-
pan and to prevent "waste of naval Tinian Town from their foxholes. vanced 600 yards when it came un-
gunfire on areas largely deserted by This was good for morale but the der heavy fire from caves along the
the enemy:' night was marred by the weather and coast north of the town. With the
The 2d Marines on the eastern ter- enemy activity. A soaking rain fell help of tanks and armored amphib-
rain ran into pockets of resistance on through the night. Enemy mortar ians operating offshore this problem
a hill at Masalog Point; the 6th Ma- tubes and artillery pieces fired inces- was overcome. Flamethrowing tanks
rines encountered a 20-man Japanese santly, drawing counterbattery fire worked over the caves, allowing en-
patrol that attempted to penetrate the from Marine gunners. There were gineers to seal them up with demoli-
regiment's lines after dark. The 25th probes in front of the 3d Battalion, tion charges. In one cave, a 75mm
took sniper fire as it moved through 25th Marines, silenced by mortar and gun was destroyed.
cane fields and later in the day en- small arms fire; 41 Japanese bodies The regiment entered the ruins of
gaged in a heavy firefight with were found in the area at daylight. Tinian Town at 1420. Except for one
Japanese troops fighting from dug- On 30 July—Jig plus 6—Tinian Japanese soldier who was eliminat-
in positions. The Marines suffered Town became the principal objective ed on the spot, the town was desert-
several casualties and one of their of the 4th Division and, specifically, ed. After searching through the
tanks was disabled in this fight. But Colonel Franklin A. Hart's 24th Ma- rubble for snipers and documents,
the resistance was overcome. The rines. At 0735 all of the division's ar- the Marines drove on to the 0-7 line
.24th Marines, operating near the tillery battalions laid down prepara- objective south of town. Their
west coast, ran into Japanese posi- tory fires in front of the Marine lines. greatest peril was from mines and
tions that included a series of mutu- After 10 minutes, the firing stopped booby traps planted in beach areas
ally supporting bunkers. The 4th and the troops moved out. At the and roads.
rank Battalion reported that the area same time, two destroyers and cruis- As the 24th moved south, the 25th
"had to be overrun twice by tanks" ers lying in Sunharon Harbor off the Marines were seizing Airfield Num-
I3Gen Merritt A. Edson, (with binoculars) assistant division of his troops not far from the scene of action. Gen Edson was
commander of the 2d Marine Division, follows the progress awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism on Guadalcanal.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87824

21
ber 4 on the eastern outskirts of Tin- of the island remained for safe firing nearly 9,000 Japanese defenders were
ian Town. The unfinished facility, a by ships not supporting battalions still alive on the island.
prisoner revealed, was being rushed [i.e., not with shore spotters]," ac- The terrain occupied by the
to completion to accommodate relief cording to a report on 30 July by Rear Japanese main force was rugged,
planes promised by Tokyo. Only one Admiral Harry W. Hill, commander difficult to reach or traverse and well-
aircraft was parked on the crushed- of the Northern Attack Force. suited for defense. Outside of Tini-
coral air strip — a small, Zero-type The Marine commander for the an Town the gentle landscape ended,
fighter. Flying suits, goggles, and operation, Major General Schmidt, with the ground rising to a high
other equipment were found in a saw the end in sight and late on the plateau 5,000 yards long and 2,000
supply room. afternoon of 30 July issued an oper- yards wide, with altitudes higher
Enroute to the airfield, the 25th ations order calling on the divisions than 500 feet. The plateau was rocky
had taken light small arms fire and to drive all the way to the southeast and covered with thick brush. There
while crossing the airstrip was mor- coastline, seize all territory remain- were many caves. Along the east
tared from positions to the south. ing in enemy hands and "annihilate coast, the cliff walls rose steeply and
This was the 25th's last action of the the opposing Japanese:' appeared impossible to scale. The ap-
Tinian campaign. It went into reserve This was not a trifling assignment; proaches to the plateau were blocked
and was relieved that night by units it produced the heaviest fighting since by many cliffs of this sort as well as
of the 23d Marines and the 1st Bat- the counterattack on the night of Jig by jungle growth. A road in the
talion, 8th Marines. Day. A Japanese warrant officer cap- center of the plateau, leading to its
The 2d Division, operating to the tured on 29 July estimated that 500 top, was reported by a prisoner to be
east of the 4th, ran into occasional troops of the 56th Naval Guard Force mined. The plateau was the enemy's
opposition from machine gun posi- and from 1,700 to 1,800 troops of thelast redoubt.
tions and a 70mm howitzer. The 3d 50th Infantry Regiment remained in It became the object of the most
Battalion, 2d Marines, had the the southeastern area in a battle- intense bombardments any Japanese
roughest time. After silencing the ready condition. American intelli- force had yet experienced to date in
howitzer, it attacked across an open gence estimates on 29 July, based on World War II. Marine artillery regi-
field and chased a Japanese force into daily reports from the divisions, ments on the island and the XXIV
a large cave where, with the help of reckoned that 3,000 Japanese soldi- Corps Artillery on southern Saipan
a flame-throwing tank, 89 Japanese ers and sailors had been killed or fired throughout the night of 30-31
were killed and four machine guns taken prisoner up to that point, If July on the wooded clifflines the Ma-
were destroyed. Soon afterward the that was the case, two-thirds of the rines would face during their assault.
battalion came under mortar fire. "It
is beyond my memory as to the num- As a Navy corpsman administers a bottle of plasma to a wounded Marine, the
ber of casualties the 3d Battalion stretcher bearers wait patiently to carry him on board a landing craft which will
suffered at that time;' the unit's com- evacuate him to a hospital ship offshore, where he will be given full treatment.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87434
mander, Lieutenant Colonel Walter
F. Layer, later reported. "1 personal-
ly rendered first aid to two wound-
ed 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, des-
troying the enemy mortars?
These were minor delays. The di-
vision 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 Tini-
an. The Marines "had advanced so
rapidly that only four square miles

22
of shells at their targets. Artillerymen
of the 10th Marines fired about 5,000
rounds during the night; 14th Ma-
rines gunners fired 2,000. The effect,
one prisoner said, was "almost un-
bearable:'
As you faced south on that morn-
ing, 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 bat-
talion 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 Ma-
rines would assault the cliff areas and
make their way to the top of the
plateau.
The 24th, jumping off with the 23d
Marine Corps Historical Collection at 0830, moved into the coastal plain
Some badly wounded casualties died of their severe injuries after having been evacu- and immediately encountered brush
ated from Tinian. Those who succumbed to their wounds were buried at sea. and undergrowth so dense that tank
At 0600, the battleships Tennessee P-47s, North American Mitchell B-25 operations were severely hampered.
and California, the heavy cruiser bombers, and Grumman Avenger As compensation, armored amphib-
Louisville, and the light cruisers torpedo bombers from the escort car- ians lying offshore provided heavy
Montpelier and Binninghani began rier Kit kun Bay. The planes dropped fires against enemy beach positions
the first of two sustained bombard- 69 tons of explosives before the off- and covered the regiment's right flank
ments that morning. They fired for shore gunfire resumed for another 35 as it made its way down the coast.
:75 minutes, then halted to allow a 40- minutes. All told, the battleships and A platoon-size Japanese beach unit
minute strike on the plateau by 126 cruisers fired approximately 615 tons launched a foolish counterattack on
Two Marines escort two apparently healthy, hearty, and will- in the rear of the fighting. Most of the prisoneis taken on Tin-
ing Japanese prisoners to be turned in at the POW stockade ian, however, were civilian workers rather than military men.
Department ol Defense Photo (USMC) 91365

23
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:' Lack-
ing tank support the Marines pressed
forward, running a few yards, diving
on their bellies, getting up, and ad-
vancing again. Medium tanks finally
came up in search of this elusive and
well-concealed weapon. One of them
took six quick hits from the con-
cealed position of this Japanese gun.
A second tank was hit but in the
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 152074 process the enemy position was dis-
Tank-infantry tactics perfected in prior operations proved successful on Tinian as covered: a camouflaged, concrete
well. The riflemen served as the eyes of the armored vehicle and would direct the bunker housing a 47mm antitank
tank crewmen over a telephone mounted in a box on the rear of the tank. gun and 20 troops, all of whom were
the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines at when it began to receive rifle and killed.
about 1000. The Japanese were an- machine gun fire from cliff positions. The 2d Battalion of the 23d had
nihilated. Later, flame-throwing Tanks were called on but soon found similar difficulties. After coming un-
tanks burned off brush and under- themselves mired in a minefield and der fire from riflemen and machine
growth concealing Japanese riflemen. were held up for several hours while gunners, one of its supporting tanks
On the regiment's left flank, the 3d engineers cleared 45 mines from the was disabled by a mine. After its
Battalion was in assault at the base area. crew was taken to safety by another
of the plateau. It encountered mini- The 1st Battalion, 23d Marines, tank, the disabled vehicle was seized
mal opposition until about 1600 encountered similar troubles. As the by the Japanese and used as an ar-
IVlajGen Clifton B. Cates, center, visits the command post of LtCol Charles D. Roberts, S-3 of the 24th Marines. Gen Cates
24th Marines commander Col Franklin A. Hart. On the left is would become the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 143760

24
mored machine gun nest. Other The 1st Battalion had better luck. ing a good defense.
eanks soon took it out. The 23d also Company A made it to the top of the By dusk, the enemy com-
].ost that day two 37mm guns and a plateau at 1650, followed by a pla- menced a series of probing at-
one-ton truck belonging to the regi- toon from Company C. Soon after, tacks. Some Japanese intruded
ment's half-track platoon. The guns the whole battalion was atop the hill. into our positions. It was a com-
and the vehicle got too far out front, It was followed by Companies E and pletely black night. So, with
came under heavy fire and were C of the 2d Battalion. Japanese moving around in our
abandoned. A detail from the pla- The Company C commander was positions, our troops became
toon later retrieved one of the guns, Captain Carl W. Hoffman, who later very edgy and were challenging
removed the breech block from the wrote the definitive histories of the everybody in sight. We didn't
other one and brought back the Saipan and Tinian campaigns. In an have any unfortunate incidents
.50-caliber machine gun from its oral history interview, he described of Marines firing on Marines
mounting on the truck. his own experiences on top of the [because they] were well-
plateau the night of 31 July: seasoned by this point .
Late in the afternoon, the 1st Bat-
talion, 23d Marines, and a compa- By the time we got up there As the night wore on, the in-
ny from the 2d Battalion gained a there wasn't enough day- tensity of enemy attacks started
foothold on top of the plateau; the light left to get ourselves to build and build and build.
3d Battalion soon followed. To their properly barbed-wired in, to get They finally launched a full
left, the 3d Battalion, 8th Marines, our fields of fire established, to scale banzai attack against [our]
shrugged off small arms fire early in site our interlocking bands of battalion . . The strange
. .

the day and reached the base of the machine gun fire — all the things thing the Japanese did here was
cliff where it stalled for the night. that should be done in prepar- that they executed one wave of
Tinian Town was made a shambles because U.S. commanders directed a large share of the pre-Jig Day bombardment into
knew that the enemy was well emplaced, dug in, and expect- the waterfront and surrounding area, thereby reinforcing
ed landings on the beaches fronting the town. As a result, they Japanese belie ft that this is where the Marines would land.
Marine Corps Historical Collection

25
Marine Corps HistoriS Collection
A lone member of the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division toni of a Shinto shrine. The ruins about him give proof of
patrolling through the outskirts of Tinian Town, pauses at a the heavy shelling visited upon the town before the landing.
attack after another against a the escarpment, Tinian had to and right toward the barbed
37mm position firing cannister be the busiest campaign within wire. The Marines had their
ammunition . the Pacific war. weapons ready and he must
That gun just stacked up have been hit from 14 different
Hoffman had another lively ex-
dead Japanese . As soon as
. . directions at once. He didn't get
perience before leaving the island. He
one Marine gunner would drop to throw [his] grenade. .
was a trumpet addict and carried his . .

another would take his place. always cited him as the in-
horn with him all through the Pacif-
[Eight of 10 men who manned dividual who didn't like my
ic war:
the gun were killed or wound- music. He was no supporter of
ed]. Soon we were nearly For Tinian, I didn't take any my trumpet playing. But . . I .

shoulder-high with dead chances such as sending my even continued my little concert
Japanese in front of that horn ashore in a machine gun after we had accounted for him.
weapon . . . . By morning we cart or a battalion ambulance.
had defeated the enemy. I had it flown over to me. One A final banzai attack on the night
Around us were lots of dead evening, my troops were in a lit- the 37mm guns had their big harvest,
ones, hundreds of them as a tle perimeter with barbed wire occurred in the early morning hours
matter of fact. From then on all around us on top of the cliff. of 1 August. A 150-man Japanese
• . we were able to finish the My Marines were shouting in force attacked the 1st Battalion, 28th
rest of the campaign without requests: "Oh, You Beautiful Marines, on Hoffman's left flank. Af-
difficulty - . People have Doll" and "Pretty Baby" and ter 30 minutes, the main thrust of the
often said that the Tinian cam- others. While I was playing attack was spent and at dawn the
paign was the easiest campaign these tunes, all of a sudden we Japanese withdrew; 100 bodies lay in
in the Pacific . heard this scream of "banzaL" an area 70 yards square in front of
For those Marines who were An individual Japanese soldier the position of Company E, 2d Bat-
in that 37mm position up on was charging right toward me talion, 28th Marines. The 8th Ma-
26
rines took 74 casualties that night. combat, 119 Japanese were dead. civilians had been hiding out in the
The following morning the two di- Marine losses included the battalion southeast sector.
visions went back to work. The 2d commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Marine Major General James L.
moved across the plateau toward its W. Easley. Shortly afterwords, the Underhill, who took command of the
eastern cliffs, the 4th toward cliffs on regiment's 2d Battalion, led by Lieu- island as military governor on 10 Au-
the south and west. When they tenant Colonel Edmund B. Games, gust, became responsible for the care
reached the escarpment's edge, over- was hit by 100 Japanese, 30 of whom and feeding of these civilians. The
looking the ocean, their job was es- were killed before the unit withdrew. flow of civilian refugees began on
sentially done. At 1855, General Contacts of this kind continued for August 1, he recalled:
Schmidt declared the island "secure," months. By the end of the year,
meaning that organized resistance Colonel Clarence R. Wallace's 8th About 500 came through im-
had ended. But not the killing. Marines, left on Tinian for mopping- mediately, the next day about
Hundreds of Japanese troops re- up operations, had lost 38 killed and 800, then a thousand and then
mained holed up in the caves pock- 125 wounded; Japanese losses were two thousand and so on in in-
mocking the southern cliffs rising up 500 dead. creasing numbers until about
from the ocean. Beginning on 1 August, there were 8,000 were in. The remaining
On the morning of 2 August, a large-scale surrenders by civilians 3,000 hid out in caves and drib-
Japanese force of 200 men sallied leaving the caves in which they had bled in over a period of months.
forth in an attack on the 3d Battal- taken refuge. Marine intelligence About 30 percent adult males,
ion, 6th Marines. After two hours of officers estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 20 percent adult females, and
This cliff was a formidable obstacle to movement on 31 July. the rockly slopes toward the flat plateau on top. The 1st and
Cutting practically across the entire island, it provided 2d Battalions, 8th Marines, spent a busy night (31 July4 Au-
problems for both divisions. Here, 2d Division Marines climb gust) 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 pic-
and 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 un-
inzg 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. There were also suicides and ritu- Efforts to prevent incidents of this
Many of them were in bad al murders, as indicated in a report kind were generally successful. Ma-
shape — hungry,wounded, ill from the 23d Marines on 3 August: rines used amplifiers on land and off-
and with few possessions be- shore to promise good treatment to
yond the clothes they were Several freak incidents oc- civilians and soldiers who would sur-
wearing. curred during the day: (1) Jap render peacefully. "Thousands of
It was estimated that about 4,000 children thrown [by their par- civilians;' Hoffman wrote, "many
civilians were killed in the bombard- ents] over cliff into ocean; (2) clad in colorful Japanese silk,
ments of Tinian and in fighting on [Japanese] military grouped responded to the promises — though
the island. On Saipan, Marines had civilians in numbers of 15 to 20 it was plain from the expressions on
been helpless to prevent mass suicides and attached explosive charges their faces that they expected the
among the civilian population. They to them, blowing them to bits; worst:'
were more successful at Tinian. Un- (3) Both military and civilians
fortunate incidents occurred— lined up on the cliff and hurled
civilians, for example, dying under themselves into the ocean; (4) By 14 August the entire 4th Divi-
Marine fire after wandering into the Many civilians pushed over cliff sion had embarked on the long trip
lines at night. by IJapanesel soldiers. to its base camp on Maui. It had suf-

29
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87678
In an impromptu command post set up behind his 8th frontline troops on a situation map. The overhead poncho
Marines, Col Clarence R. Wallace, checks the progress of his provides some protection from Tinian's constant rains.

fered in this brief operation more It was not long after the initial landing that Marines encountered the civilian
than 1,100 casualties, including 212 population of Tinian. Here Marines bathe a tiny Tinian girl after she and her family
killed. Its next assignment would be had been removed from a hillside dugout. Following the scrubbing, new clothes were
Iwo Jima. found for the children and the entire family was taken to a place of safety in the rear
Depariment of Defense Photo (USMC) 90441
The 2d Division remained in the
Marianas, setting up a base camp on
Saipan where the 2d and 6th regi-
ments took up residence in mid-
August. The 8th Marines remained
on Tinian for mopping-up purposes
until October 25, when the 2d and
3d Battalions moved to Saipan, leav-
ing 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 in-
clude casualties suffered after the is-
land 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.

30
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 419222
Former Marine Corps Combat Correspondent SSgt Federico Tinian child candy 25 years earlier. Claveria participated
Ckiveria looks at photograph of himself giving an interned in the initial landings on Roi-Namur and Saipan also.
They were located 1,200 nautical Top commanders gather for the flagraising on 3 August 1944 at the conclu-
miles from the home islands of sion of Tinian operations. From left are RAdm Harry W. Hill; MajGen Harry
Japan, a distance ideal for the B-29 Schmidt; Adm Raymond L. Spruance; LtGen Holland M. Smith; VAdm Richmond
with its range of 2,800 miles. Tinian Kelly Turner; MajGen Thomas A. Watson; and MajGen Clifton B. Cates.
Marine Corps Historical Collection
became the home for two wings of
the Twentieth Air Force. Three
months after the conquest of Tinian,
B-29s were hitting the Japanese main-
land. 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 Man-
anas, dropped 157,000 tons of explo-
sives 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 war-
fare was insured by the flight of Eno-
Ia Gay on 6 August 1945. It dropped

31
a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima.
Two days later a second nuclear
weapon was dropped on Nagasaki.
The next day, the Japanese govern-
ment surrendered.
In his official history of the 2d Ma-
rine 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 R executive,Harwood,
ichard a journalist and news
retired as deputy managing edi-
Division in World War II (Washington, tor of The Washington Post in 1988. He now
August, 1945); John Costello, The Pacific writes an editorial column for The Post which is
War (New York, 1981); John Dower, distributed nationally by the Los Angeles Times-
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in Washington Post News Service. He served in the
the Pacific War (New York, 1986); Maj U.S. Marines from 1942 until 1946, and spent 30
Carl W. Hoffman, Saipan: The Begin- months in the Pacific. As a radio operator in the
ning of the End (Washington, 1950); Maj V Amphibious Corps he participated in four
Carl W. Hoffman, The Seizure of Tini- operations, including Tinian.
an (Washington, 1951); Frank Olney
Hough, The Island War: The U.S. Ma-
rine Corps in the Pacific (Philadelphia,
In A Different War: Marines in Europe and North Africa, page 32 reports Adm
1947); Jeter A. Isely and Philip A. Hewitt visited the cruiser "Helena (CL-So)" in spring 1946. This cruiser was sunk in
C:rowl, The U.S. Marine Corps and Am-
1943. The ship the admiral boarded was its successor, the heavy cruiser Helena
phibious War (Princeton, 1951); Richard
(CA-75). On page 27 of Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam, the 77th In-
W Johnston, Follow Mel The Story of
fantry Division patrolled hills to the east, rather than to the west. The date of the
the Second Marine Division in World
action which merited a Medal of Honor for PFC Harold C. Epperson is 25 June
War II (New York, 1948); Allen R. 1944, not July, as stated on page 30 of Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan
Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of
the United States Marine Corps (New
York, 1991); J. Robert Moskin, The U.S.

ft
Marine Corps Story (Boston, 1992); Carl
W. Proehl (ed.), The Fourth Marine Di-
vision in World War II (Nashville, 1988);
Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, Ed-
win T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive: 945 ifl / 'A'
History of U.S. Marine Corps Opera- WORLD WAR II 91 W \Aj (I
tions in World War II, vol III (Washing-
ton, 1966); Ronald H. Spector, Eagle THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the
Against the Sun (New York, 1985). World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by
The transcripts of the following re- the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,
tired Marines interviewed for the Marine Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance
Corps Oral History Program reside in of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.
the Oral History Collection, Marine Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by
Corps Historical Center, Washington a bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband,
Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. Their Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple
roles at Tinian are as indicated: BGen Heart.
William W. Buchanan, assistant naval WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
gunfire officer, 4th Marine Division; Gen DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Cli:Eton B. Cates, commanding general, Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)
4th Marine Division; LtCol Justice M.
Chambers, commanding officer, 3d Bat- GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
talion, 25th Marines; MajGen Carl W. Benis M. Frank
Hoffman, commanding officer, Compa-
CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
ny C, 2d Battalion, 8th Marines; Gen George C. MacGillivray
Robert E. 1-fogaboom, G-3, Northern
EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Troops Landing Force; MajGen Louis R. Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information
Jones, commanding officer, 23d Ma- Specialist; Catherine A. ICerns, Composition Services Technician
rines; BGen Frederick J. Karch, S-3, 14th Marine Corps Historical Center
Ma:rines; MajGen Wood B. Kyle, com- Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
manding officer, 1st Battalion, 2d Ma- Washington, D.C. 20374-5040
rines; MajGen William W. Rogers, chief
of staff, 4th Marine Division; LtGen 1994
James L. Underhill, island commander, PCN 190 003127 00
Tinian.

You might also like