A Close Encounter:The Marine Landing on Tinianby Richard Harwood

hree weeks into thebattle for Saipan,there was no doubtabout the outcomeand V Amphibious

Corps (VAC) commanders beganturning their attention to the nextobjective — the island of Tinian,clearly visible three miles off Saipan'ssouthwest coast. Its garrison of 9,000Japanese army and navy combatants,many of them veterans of the cam-paigns in Manchuria, had been bom-barded for seven weeks by U.S. airand sea armadas, joined in late Juneby massed Marine Corps and Armyartillery battalions on Saipan'ssouthern coast. The 2d and 4th Ma-rine Divisions, both still in the thickof the Saipan fight, had been select-ed for the assault mission.

The crucial question of where theywould land, however, was still un-decided. There was strong supportamong the planners for a landing ontwo narrow sand strips — code namedWhite 1 and White 2— on Tinian'snorthwest coast; one was 60 yardswide, the other 160. But Vice Ad-miral Richmond K. Turner, overallcommander of the Marianas Expedi-tionary Force, was skeptical. Heleaned toward Yellow Beach, madeup of several wide, sandy strips infront of Tinian Town, the island's

On the Cover: Following the assaultwaves, 4th Division Marines wadeashore at Tinian from Coast Guard land-ing craft against no opposition on thebeaches.At left: Amphibian tractors and Higginsboats (LCVPs, landing craft, vehicle andpersonnel) leave wakes as they land Ma-rines on White Beach 2 and return to as-sault shipping off shore to load moretroops and supplies. Department ofDefense Photo (USMC) 87085

heavily fortified administrative andcommercial center.

On 3 July, VAC's Amphibious Re-connaissance Battalion, commandedby Captain James L. Jones, was puton alert for reconnaissance of thesepotential landing sites. On 9 July, theday Saipan officially was declared se-cured, Jones got his operation orderfrom Marine Lieutenant General Hol-land M. Smith, commander of Ex-peditionary Troops. His men were toscout out the Tinian beaches andtheir fortifications and determinetheir capacity to handle the landingforce and keep it supplied. Accom-panying naval underwater demoli-tion teams would do the hydro-graphic work and locate underwaterobstacles, natural or man-made.

Captain Jones picked for the jobCompany A under the command ofCaptain Merwin H. Silverthorn, Jr.,the son of a Marine general andWorld War I veteran, and CompanyB, commanded by Firt LieutenantLeo B. Shinn. The Navy assigned tothe mission Underwater (UDI) Team5, led by Lieutenant CommanderDraper L. Kauffman, and UIX Team7 under Lieutenant Richard F. Burke.They rehearsed the operation on thenight of 9-10 July off the beaches ofSaipan's Magicienne Bay. On theevening of the 10th, the Marine andNavy units boarded the destroyertransports Gilrner and Stringharn forthe short trip into the channelsseparating the two islands.

The teams debarked in rubberboats at 2030, paddled to within 500yards of the beach and swam to theirdestinations. Fortunately, it was ablack night and although the moonrose at 2230, it was largely obscuredby clouds.

Yellow Beach was assigned to Sil-

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verthorn's Company A. He led 20Marines and eight UDT swimmersashore. They found a beach nearTinian Town flanked on each side byformidable cliffs. There were manyfloating mines and underwater boul-ders in the approaches. On the beachitself, double-apron barbed wire hadbeen strung. Second LieutenantDonald K Neff worked his way 30yards inland to locate exit routes forvehicles. Nearby, talkative Japanesework crews were building pillboxesand trenching with blasting charges.Neff spotted three Japanese sentrieson a cliff overlooking the beach; nowand then searchlights scanned thebeach approaches.

Silverthorn, Burke, and their menmade it back to the Gilmer safely.Their impression of Yellow Beach asa landing site was distinctly un-favorable.

To the north, at the White Beachesassigned to Company B, things hadnot gone well. Strong currentspushed the rubber boats off course.The team headed for White 1 wasswept 800 yards north of its destina-tion and never got ashore. The partyheaded for White 2 wound up onWhite 1 and reconnoitered the area.Both parties were picked up by theGilmer. The next night 10 swimmersfrom Company A were sent back toreconnoiter White 2 and had a suc-cessful trip.

The reports on the White beacheswere encouraging. Although thelanding areas were very restricted, itwas concluded that amphibian trac-tors (LVTs) and other vehicles couldnegotiate the reefs and get ashore,and that troops with little difficultycould clamber over the low cliffsflanking the beaches. Marines forcedto disembark from boats at the reef

could safely wade ashore through theshallow surf. Members of Kauffman'sUDT party confirmed the Marinefindings and reported that "no minesor manmade underwater obstruc-tions were found."

A few hours after the reconnais-sance team returned from White 2,Admiral Turner's objections werewithdrawn and a command decisionto use the northern beaches wasmade. On 20 July, a time and date forthe landing were fixed: 0730 on 24July.

The task of seizing Tinian was as-signed to the two Marine divisionson Saipan — the 2d and the 4th. Thethird division on the island — the Ar-my's 27th Infantry—would remainon Saipan in reserve. All three hadbeen severely battered during the Sai-pan campaign, suffering more than14,000 casualties, including nearly3,200 dead.

For the 2d Marine Division, theTinian battle would be the fourth

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time around in a span of little morethan 18 months. The division leftGuadalcanal in February 1943, hav-ing suffered 1,000 battle casualties.Another 12,500 men had diagnosedcases of malaria. Nine monthslater— on 20 November 1943— thedivision had gone through one of themost intense 72 hours of combat inthe history of island warfare at Tara-Wa. It sustained 3,200 casualties, in-cluding nearly a thousand dead. Tenweeks before Tarawa, the divisionwas still malaria-ridden, with troopsbeing hospitalized for the disease atthe rate of 40 a day. The ranks werefilled with gaunt men whose skinswere yellowed by daily doses ofAtabrine pills. The Saipan operationseven months later, led by divisioncommander Major General ThomasE. Watson, took a heavy toll of thesemen —5,000 wounded, 1,300 dead.

Watson had earned a reputation atSaipan as a hard-charging leader.When the division stalled fighting itsway up Mount Topatchau, he wasunimpressed. The historian RonaldSpector wrote, in the midst of thateffort, "he was heard shouting overa field telephone, 'There's not a god-damn thing up on that hill but someJaps with machine guns and mortars.Now get the hell up there and getthemi'" His assistant division com-mander was Brigadier General Mer-ritt A. "Red Mike" Edson, who wasawarded a Medal of Honor for hisheroism on Guadalcanal.

The 4th Division had had a busy,if slightly less demanding, year aswell. It went directly into combat af-ter its formation at Camp Pendleton,California, landing on 31 January1944 in the Marshall Islands whereit suffered moderate casualties—fewer than 800 men — in the captureof Roi-Namur. At Saipan its lossesreached 6,000, including about 1,000dead. The Tinian landing would beits third in a little over six monthsand would be the first under a newdivisional commander— Major Gen-eral Clifton B. Cates, a well-decorated

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 151969An oblique photograph of White Beach 1 was taken before naval gunfire, artillery,air bombardment, and bulldozers altered its appearance. This 60-yard beach laterbecame the port of entry for most of V Amphibious Corps' heavy equipment.

World War I veteran, who would be-come the 19th Commandant of theMarine Corps in 1948.

Still, "the morale of the troopscommitted to the Tinian operationwas generally high;' then-Major CarlVi. Hoffman wrote in the official his-tory of the battle. "This fact takes onsignificance only when it is recalledthat the Marines involved had justsurvived a bitter 25-day struggle andthat, with only a fortnight lapse (asdistinguished from a fortnight rest),they were again to assault enemy-held shores . . . . [Their] spiritwas revealed more in a philosophicalshrug, accompanied with a 'here-we-go-again' remark, than in a resentful

complaint [at] being called uponagain so soon:'

The morale of the troops was sus-tained by the preinvasion fires direct-ed at Tinian. For Jig minus 1 and JigDay (Jig being the name given to DDay at Tinian), Rear Admiral HarryW. 1-1111, commander of the NorthernLanding Force, had divided the islandinto five fire support sectors, assign-ing specific ships to each. His pur-pose was two-fold: destruction anddeception to confuse and deceive theJapanese as to the landing intentionsof the Marines.

Tinian Town, under this scheme,got the heaviest pounding the day be-

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fore the landing—almost 3,000rounds of 5- to 16-inch shells fromthe battleships Colorado, Tennessee,and California, the cruiser Cleve-land, and seven destroyers: Ramey,Wadleigh, Norman Scott, Ivlonssen,Waller, Pringle and Philip. Coloradohad the best day, knocking out with60 rounds of 16-inch shells the two6-inch coastal defense guns theJapanese had emplaced on the westcoast near Faibus San Hilo Point,guns that easily could have coveredthe White Beaches.

Firing on the White Beach area it-self was minimal for purposes of de-ception and for lack of suitable tar-gets. The cruiser Louisville fired 390

rounds into the area before calling ita day

There was a lot of air activity onthe 23d. At three periods during theday, naval gunfire and artillery bar-rages were halted to allow massive airstrikes on railroad junctions, pillbox-es, villages, gun emplacements, canefields, and the beaches at TinianTown. More than 350 Navy andArmy planes took part, dropping 500bombs, 200 rockets, 42 incendiaryclusters, and 34 napalm bombs. Thiswas only the second use of napalmduring the Pacific War; napalmbombs were first used on Tinian theday before.

That evening, 37 LSTs at anchoroff Saipan were loaded with 4th Ma-

rine Division troops. Rations forthree days, water and medical sup-plies, ammunition, vehicles, andother equipment had been pre-loaded, beginning on 15 July Thetroops were going to travel light: aspoon, a pair of socks, insect repel-lant, and emergency supplies in theirpockets, and no pack on their backs.

"Close at hand;' the historians JeterIsely and Philip Crowl wrote in theirclassic The U.S. Marines and Am-phibious War, "rode the ships of thetwo transport divisions that wouldcarry two regiments of the 2d MarineDivision on a diversionary feintagainst Tinian Town and would laterdisembark them along with the thirdregiment across the northwesternbeaches:' (A similar feint was madeby 2d Division Marines less than ayear later off the southeast beachesof Okinawa, and by the same divi-sion lying off Kuwait City nearly 50years later in the Desert Stormoperation).

The 4th was designated the assaultdivision for Tinian. The beacheswere 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

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

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 150633

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General Clifton B. Cates, USMClii ton B. Cates, a native Ten-nessean, was commissioned in1917, and was sent to France

with the 6th Marines in World War I. Hehad outstanding service in five major en-gagements of the war, and returned tothe United States a well-decorated youngofficer after his tour in the occupation ofGermany. One of his early assignmentsfollowing the war was as aide to MajorGeneral Commandant George Barnett.During his more than 37 years as a Ma-rine, Cates was one of the few officerswho held commands of a platoon, acompany, a battalion, a regiment, anda division in combat. He was the 19thCommandant of the Marine Corps at theoutset of the Korean War.

His assignments during the interwaryears consisted of a combination ofschooling, staff assignments, and com-mand, such as his tour as battalion com-mander in the 4th Marines, then inShanghai. In 1940, he took command of

the Basic School, then in the Philadel-phia Navy Yard. He took command ofthe 1st Marines in May 1942.

In World War II, Cates commandedthe 1st Marines in the landing onGuadalcanal. After returning to theStates, he was promoted to brigadiergeneral. He went back to the Pacific warin mid-1944 to take command of the 4thMarine Division in time for the Tinianoperation. He also led it in the Iwo Jimaassault, and was decorated at the end ofthe fighting with his second Distin-guished Service Medal. Part of the cita-tion accompanying the medal reads:"Repeatedly disregarding his own per-sonal safety, Major General Catestraversed his own front lines daily to ral-ly his tired, depleted units and by his un-daunted valor, tenacious perseverance,and staunch leadership in the face Qfoverwhelming odds, constantly inspiredhis stout-hearted Marines to heroic effortduring critical phases of the campaign."

On 1 January 1948, General Catestook over as Commandant of the Ma-rine Corps, remaining until 31 Deçem-ber 1951, when he reverted to the threestars of a lieutenant general and beganhis second tour as Commandant of theMarine Corps Schools at Quantico, Vir-ginia. General Cates retired on 30 June1954. He died on 4 June 1970.

after taking part in the massive feintoff the beaches of Tinian Town, hop-ing to tie down the main Japanesedefense forces and spring the surpriseof a landing over the lightly defend-ed northern beaches.

To give the 4th more punch im-mediately after landing, the 2d wasstripped of some of its firepower,such as tank and artillery units. Itwould, accordingly, be at the loweststrength at Tinian of any Marine di-vision involved in an amphibiousoperation in World War II.

Despite these additions, the 4th,too, would be understrength —"skinny" was the descriptive wordused by Lieutenant Colonel JusticeM. "Jumping Joe" Chambers, com-mander of the 3d Battalion, 25th Ma-rines, who was to earn a Medal ofHonor in the Iwo Jima operation lit-tle more than six months later. Thedivision's infantry battalions hadreceived only one replacement draftafter the Saipan fighting. At fullstrength they averaged 880 men; at

Tinian the average strength wasdown by more than 35 percent to565.

For all these reasons — combat f a-

tigue, heavy losses during previousweeks and months, and under-strength units — the Marines on Tin-ian would play a cautious game.Admiral Turner had said he wouldgive them two weeks to seize the is-land. Major General Harry Schmidt,who relieved Lieutenant General Hol-land M. Smith as VAC commander,promised to get it done in 10 days.In the event, the island was securedafter nine days. In retrospect,analysts say the operation could havebeen finished off sooner by more ag-gressive tactics. Time, however, wasno great factor; the relatively slowpace of the operation probably keptcasualties at a minimum and reducedthe probabilities of troop fatigue.Tinian was easy on the eyes, but theheat and humidity were brutal, thecane fields were hard going, and itwas the season of monsoons.

S

The first troop ships moved out ofSaipan's Charan Kanoa harbor at0330, 24 July. They were the trans-ports Knox, Calvert, Fuller, Bell,Heyv,ood, and John Land. Theywere carrying the 2d and 8th Marines(infantry regiments) of the 2d MarineDivision on a mission of deceptionthat turned out to be far bloodierthan the White Beach landings andfar bloodier than anyone had antic-ipated. They had a muscular escort— the battleship Colorado, the lightcruiser Cleveland, and the destroyersRatney, Norman Scott, Wadleigh,and Monssen.

The convoy moved into SunharonHarbor opposite Tinian Town justbefore dawn. A few minutes after0600, the Calvert began lowering itslanding craft and by 0630 all 22 ofits boats were in the water. Marinesclimbed down the cargo nets. Withina half hour, 244 Navy and Armyplanes began strafing and bombing

runs paying particular attention toTinian Town. Shells and rockets frombattleships, heavy and light cruisers,destroyers, and 30 gunboats saturat-ed the beaches. The massed artillerybattalions on southern Saipan thun-dered in with their 105s and 155s.

After a half-hour of this furiousbombardment, the LCVPs (landingcraft, vehicle and personnel) fromCalvert began their run toward thebeach at Tinian Town, receivingheavy artillery and mortar fire fromthe shore. Admiral Hill, seeking to

avoid casualties, ordered the boats towithdraw and reform. A second runstarted and immediately drew firefrom the shore; several boats weresprayed with shell fragments. Butthey continued on to within 400yards of the beach before turningback.

While the small boats engaged inthis maneuver, the battleship Colora-do came under fire at a range of 3,200yards from two 6-inch naval gunsnear Tinian Town, guns that hadgone undetected during the weeks of

preinvasion surveillance and prepara-tory fires. Within 15 minutes, theJapanese gunners scored 22 direct hitson Colorado and six direct hits onthe destroyer Norman Scott, whichwas attempting to protect the battle-ship. Casualties among the crews andMarine detachments on the two shipswere heavy: 62 killed and 223wounded. Ten Marines were among

dead, 31 were among the wound-Colorado was through for theand limped off back to Saipan.Japanese battery survived for

theed.dayThe

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four more days until destroyed by thebattleship Tennessee.

The losses sustained by the twoships exceeded those suffered thatday by the Marine landing force onthe northwestern beaches. But thefeint served its purpose. It froze inplace around Tinian Town a wholebattalion of the 50th Infantry Regi-rnent and various elements of the56th Naval Guard Force. And it con-vinced the Japanese commander,Colonel Kiyochi Ogata, that he hadthwarted an invasion. His message toTokyo described how his forces hadrepelled 100 landing barges.

These "barges" were reloaded onthe Culvert at 1000 and the convoysteamed north to the White Beacheswhere 4th Division troops had land-ed after a mishap in their planning.An underwater demolition team us-ing floats carrying explosives swamto White Beach 2 shortly beforedawn to blast away boulders and

destroy beach mines. The missionfailed because of a squall. The floatsscattered, the explosives were lostand a few hours later, Marines paida price for this aborted mission.

To compensate for the failure ofthe UEYT team, fire support ships ly-ing off the White Beaches — the bat-tleships California and Tennessee, theheavy cruiser Louisville, and fourdestroyers — blasted away at the land-ing areas. Air strikes were then or-dered at about 0630 and observersclaimed that five of the 14 knownbeach mines had been destroyed. Abattery of 155mm "Long Tom" gunson Saipan fired smokeshells at theJapanese command post on MountLasso and also laid smoke in thewoods and on the bluffs just beyondthe beaches to obstruct Japanese ob-servation.

The assault plan assigned WhiteBeach 1 to the 24th Marines and

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White Beach Two to the 25th. In thevanguard for the 24th was CompanyE of the 2d Battalion —200 men com-manded by Captain Jack F. Ross, Jr.Company A of the 1st Battalion,commanded by Captain IrvingSchechter, followed and by 0820 theentire 2d Battalion, commanded byMajor Frank A. Garretson, wasashore.

Almost simultaneously, two bat-talions of the 25th Marines loadedinto 16 LVTs landed in columns ofcompanies on White Beach 2. The 2dBattalion under Lieutenant ColonelLewis C. Hudson, Jr., was on theright; the 3d Battalion (LieutenantColonel Chambers) was on the left.

The units of the 24th, loaded into24 LVTs, crossed the line of departure—3,000 yards offshore—at 0717.Ahead of them, 30 LCIs (landingcraft, infantry) and a company of the2d Armored Amphibian Battalion,commanded by Lieutenant ColonelReed M. Fawell, Jr., raked thebeaches with barrage rockets and au-tomatic cannon fire. On the 26-min-ute run to the beach, the troop-ladenLVTs took scattered and ineffectualrifle and machine gun fire.

At! White 1, members of a smallJapanese beach detachment, holedup in caves and crevices, resisted thelanding with intense small arms fire.But they were silenced quickly byCompany E gunners.

Within an hour, the entire 1st and2d Battalions of the 24th were ashoreon White 1, preparing to move in-land. The 2d Battalion encounteredsporadic artillery, mortar, and smallarms fire during the first 200 yardsof its advance. After that, Garretsonlater said, the battalion had a "cakewalk" for the rest of the day, gaining1,400 yards and reaching its 0-1 lineobjective by 1600. He occupied thewestern edge of Airfield No. 3 andcut the main road linking AirfieldNo. 1 with the east coast andsouthern Tinian. Only occasionalsmall arms fire was encountered be-fore the battalion dug in for thenight.

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On Garretson's left, the 1st Battal-ion, commanded by LieutenantColonel Otto Lessing, was slowed byheavy fires from cave positions andpatches of heavy vegetation.Flamethrower tanks were sent upagainst these positions, but theJapanese held on. As a result, Less-ing pulled up late in the afternoon400 yards short of his objective. Thisleft a gap between his perimeter andGarretson's. To fill it, the regiment's3d Battalion, waiting in reserve at thebeach, was called up.

Almost simultaneously, the 25thran into problems. The beach and

surrounding area had been method-ically seeded with mines whichneither ULIT teams nor offshore gun-ners had been able to destroy. It tooksix hours to clear them out and in theprocess three LVTs and a jeep wereblown up. The beach defenses alsoincluded a sprinkling of booby trapswhich had to be dealt with — watchesand cases of beer, for example, allwired to explode in the hands of care-less souvenir hunters.

Behind the beach, troops fromOgata's 50th Regiment put up avigorous defense with mortars, anti-tank and anti-boat guns, and other

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automatic weapons emplaced in pill-boxes, caves, fortified ravines, andfield entrenchments. Two 47mm gunsin particular kept the Marines backon their heels. They finally bypassedthese troublesome positions. Laterwaves took them out, leaving 50dead Japanese in the gunpits.

The 3d Battalion commander,Lieutenant Colonel Chambers, laterremembered a lot of confusion on thebeach, 'the confusion you [always]gel when you land, of getting the or-ganization together again:' One of hiscompany commanders, for example,was killed a half-hour after landing

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Tinian Defense Forcesapanese military fortification of Tinian and otherislands in the chain had begun — in violation of theLeague of Nations Mandate—in the 1930s. By 1944, the

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

The 50th Infantry Regiment, detached from the 29th Div i-sion on Guam, was the principal fighting force. It had beenstationed near Mukden, Manchuria, from 1941 until its trans-fer in March 1944 to Tinian. Many of its troops were vete-rans of the Manchurian campaigns. The regiment wascommanded by Colonel Kiyoshi [also spelled "Keishi"] Oga-ta and consisted of three 880-man infantry battalions, a75mm mountain artillery battalion equipped with 12 guns,engineer, communication, and medical companies, plus aheadquarters and various specialized support units, includ-ing a company of 12 light tanks and an anti-tank platoon.He also had a battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment witha strength of about 900 men. Altogether, slightly more than5,000 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 con-struction battalions with a combined strength of 1,800 men.Other naval units, totaling about 1,000 men, included groundelements of seven aviation squadrons and a detachment ofthe 5th Base Force.

The navy personnel —about 4,200 altogether—were underthe immediate command of Captain Oichi Oya. Both Oya andOgata were outranked on the island by Vice Mmiral KakujiKakuda, commander of the 1st Air Fleet with headquarterson Tinian. But Kakuda, as the invasion neared, had no airfleet to command. Of the estimated 107 planes based at Tini-an's air fields, 70 had been destroyed on the ground early inJune by U.S. air strikes. By the time of the Tinian landing on24 July, none of Kakuda's planes were operative.

Kakuda had a bad reputation. He was, by Japanese physi-cal standards, a hulking figure: more than six feet tall, weigh-ing more than 200 pounds. "He willingly catered:' Hoffmanwrote, "to his almost unquenchable thirst for liquor; he lackedthe fortitude to face the odds arrayed against him at Tinian."Historian Frank Hough called him "a drunk and an exceed-ingly unpleasant one, from all accounts:'

On 15 July, nine days before the invasion, Kakuda and hisheadquarters group attempted to escape via rubber boats toAguijan Island where they hoped to rendezvous with aJapanese submarine. This effort failed. He tried again on fivesuccessive nights with the same results, finally abandoning theeffort on 21 July. He fled with his party from Tinian Townto a cave on Tinian's east coast where they awaited their fate.A Japanese prisoner who described Kakudas escape effortsassumed he had committed suicide after the American land-ing, but this was never verified. Toward the end of the battlefor Tinian, one of Kakuda's orderlies led an American patrolto the cave. The patrol was fired upon and two Marines werewounded. A passing group of Marine pioneers sealed the cave

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with demolition charges but it is unknown whether Kakudawas inside.

Admiral Kakuda in any case took no part in directing theJapanese resistance. For purposes of defending the island, com-mand of both army and navy forces was assumed by ColonelOgata, but co-operation between the two service branches wasless than complete. Frictions were reflected in diaries foundamong the Japanese documents captured on Tinian. A soldi-er in the 50th Regiment's artillery battalion wrote:

9 March —The Navy stays in barracks buildingsand has liberty every night with liquor to drink andmakes a big row.

We, on the other hand, bivouac in the rain andnever 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 AirGroup has taken to its heels.

15 June —The naval aviators are robbers. . . Whenthey ran off to the mountains, they stole Army pro-visions .

The defenses of Tinian were dictated by the geography ofthe island. It is encircled by coral cliffs which rise from thecoastline and are a part of the limestone plateau underlyingthe island. These cliffs range in height from 6 to 100 feet;breaks in the cliff line are rare and where they occur are nar-row, leaving little beach space for an invasion force. Alongthe entire coastline of Tinian, only four beaches were worthyof the name.

The largest and most suitable for use by an amphibiousforce was in front of Tinian Town in Suharon Harbor. It con-sisted of several wide, sandy strips. The harbor was mediocrebut provided in fair weather limited anchorage for a few shipswhich could load and unload cargo at two piers available atTinian Town.

From the beginning, Colonel Ogata assumed that this beachwould be the first choice of the Americans. Of the roughly100 guns in fixed positions on the island — ranging from 7.7mmheavy machine guns to 6-inch British naval rifles — nearly a

third were assigned to the defense of Tinian Town and itsbeaches and to the airfield at Gurguan Point, two-and-a-halfmiles northwest of the town. Within a two-mile radius of thetown were the 2d Battalion of the 50th Infantry Regiment,1,400 men of the 56th Naval Guard Force, a tank companyof the 18th lnfantry Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 135thInfantry Regiment, which had been designated as the mobilecounterattack force.

Their area of responsibility extended to Laslo Point, thesouthernmost part of the island and, on the east, to MasalogPoint. It was designated the "Southern Sector" in Ogata'sdefense plan.

The remainder of the island was divided into northeasternand northwestern sectors. The northeastern sector included

the lishi Point airfields and a potential landing beach 125 yardswide south of Asiga Point on the east coast of the island. Inthis sector, between 600 and 1,000 navy personnel were sta-tioned around the lishi Airfields. The 2d Battalion of the 50thInfantry Regiment, along with an engineer group, was sta-tioned inland of Asagi Point. The northwestern sector con-tained two narrow strips of beach 1,000 yards apart. One ofthem was 60 yards wide and the other about 160. They werepopular with Japanese civilians. The sand was white and thewater was swimmable. They were known locally as the WhiteBeaches and that is what they were called when they werechosen — to the great surprise of the Japanese — as the Ameri-can invasion route.

This sector was defended very modestly by a single com-pany of infantry, an antitank squad, and, about 500 yardsnortheast of the White Beaches, gun crews situated in emplace-ments containing one 37mm antitank gun, one 47mm anti-tank gun, and two 7.7mm machine guns.

Ogata established his command post in a cave on MountLasso in the center of the northern region, roughlyequidistant — a little over two miles — from beaches on eitherside of the island.

He issued on 25 June an operation order saying "the enemyon Saipan can be expected to be planning a landing on Tini-an. The area of that landing is estimated to be either TinianHarbor or Asiga Harbor Eon the northeast coastJ.' Three dayslater he followed up with a "Defense Force Battle Plan" whichoutlined 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 Tin-

ian Town and Asiga Bay, but also for a counterattackin the event the Americans were to invade across the WhiteBeaches.

In each of the three sectors, according to his battle plan,commanders were to be prepared to "destroy the enemy at thebeach, but [also] be prepared to shift two-thirds of the forceelsewhere:' His reserve force was to "maintain fortified posi-tions, counter-attack points [andi maintain anti-aircraft ob-servation and fire in its area:' The "Mobile CounterattackForce" must "advance rapidly to the place of landings, depend-ing on the situation and attack:' In the event ofsuccessful landings his forces would "counterattack to the waterand . . destroy the enemy on beaches with one blow, espe-cially where time prevents quick movement of forces withinthe island:' If things were to go badly, "we will gradually fallback on our prepared positions in the southern part of theisland and defend them to the last man:'

Some of these orders were contradictory and others wereimpossible of execution. But despite the odds against them —bereft of air or sea support and confronted by three heavilyarmed divisions only three miles away on Saipan — the fight-ing spirit of the Japanese forces had not been broken by 43days of the heaviest bombardment, up to then, of the Pacificwar. One of the men of the 50th Infantry Regiment wrote inhis diary on 30 June: 'We have spent twenty days under un-ceasing enemy bombardment and air raids but have sufferedonly minor losses. Everyone from the Commanding Officerto the lowest private is full of fighting spirit:' Hisentry for 19 July, five days before the American landings, wasupbeat: "How exalted are the gallant figures of the ForceCommander, the Battalion Commander, and their subor-dinates, who havebombardment:'

endured the violent artillery and air

and it took a while to get a replace-ment on scene and up to speed. Thenthere was the problem of the minesand a problem with artillery firefrom the Japanese command post onMount Lasso, two-and-a-half milesaway.

By late afternoon, Chambers' bat-talion had reached its objective 1,500yards inland in the center of the lineand had tied in on its left flank withGarretson of the 24th. The other bat-talions of the 25th came up short oftheir 0-1 line, creating before sun-down a crescent-shaped beachhead3,000 yards wide at the shoreline andbulging inland to a maximum depthof 1,500 yards.

The day's greatest confusion sur-rounded the landing of the 23d Ma-rines. The regiment had been held onLSTs (landing ships, tank) in division

reserve during the landing of the 24thand 25th. At 0730, the troops wereordered below to board LVTs parkedcheek to jowl on the tank decks.Their engines were running, spewingforth carbon monoxide. Experiencehad shown that troops cooped upunder these conditions for more than30 minutes would develop severeheadaches, become nauseous, andbegin vomiting.

To avoid that problem and in theabsence of a launch order, theregimental commander, ColonelLouis R. Jones, soon unloaded hismen and sent them topside. Theyreturned to the tank decks at 1030when an order to load and launch f i-nally was received. The regiment de-barked and eventually got ashorebeginning at 1400 despite an incredi-ble series of communication break-

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downs in which Jones at crucial timeswas out of touch with the divisionand his battalions.

In addition to botched radio com-munications, Jones was stuck in anLVT with a bad engine; it took himseven hours to get ashore with hisstaff, leading to a division complaintabout the tardiness of his regiment.The division noted that "fortunatelyno serious harm was done by [the]delay;' but at the end of the opera-tion Jones left the division. He waspromoted to brigadier general and as-signed as assistant division com-mander of the 1st Marine Divisionfor the Okinawa landings.

A similar muck-up occurred in-volving the 2d Marine Division. Af-ter the feint at Tinian Town, thedivision sailed north and lay offshoreof the White Beaches through the

day. At 1515, the landing force com-mander, Major General HarrySchmidt, ordered a battalion fromthe 8th Marines to land at WhiteBeach to back up the 24th Marines.Schmidt wanted the battalion ashoreat 1600. Because of communicationand transport confusion the deadlinewas missed. It was 2000 when theunit entered in its log '1 . . dug in inassigned position:'

On the other hand, the big thingshad gone well in the morning and af-ternoon. By the standards of Tarawaand Saipan, casualties were light—iSdead, 225 wounded. The body countfor the Japanese was 438. Despitedrizzling rain, narrow beaches, andundiscovered mines, 15,600 troopswere put ashore along with greatquantities of materiel and equipmentthat included four battalions of ar-

tillery two dozen half-tracks mount-ing 75mm guns, and 48 medium and15 flame-throwing tanks whichfound the Tinian terrain hospitablefor tank operations. The tanks hadgotten into action early that morn-ing, leading the 24th in tank-infantryattacks. They also had come to theaid of the 23d Marines as that regi-ment moved inland to take over thedivision's right flank. The beachheaditself was of respectable size, despitethe failure of some units to reachtheir first-day objectives. It extend-ed inland nearly a mile and embraceddefensible territory. On the whole, ithad not been a bad day's work.

At about 1630, the 4th Divisioncommander, General Cates, orderedhis forces to button up for the night.A nighttime counterattack was ex-

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pected. Barbed wire, preloaded onamphibian vehicles (DUKWs), wasstrung all along the division front.Ammunition was stacked at everyweapons position. Machine gunswere emplaced to permit interlock-ing fields of fire. Target areas wereassigned to mortar crews. Artillerybatteries in the rear were registeredto hit probable enemy approachroutes and to fire illuminating shellsif a lighted battlefield was required.Of great importance, as it turned out,was the positioning up front of37mm guns and cannister ammuni-tion (antipersonnel shells which firedlarge pellets for close-in fighting); inthe night fighting that followed, theyinflicted severe losses on the enemy.

As the troops dug in to awaitwhatever the night would bring, the24th Marines, backed up by the 1st

Battalion, 8th Marines, occupied thenorthern half of the defensive cres-cent. The 25th and a battalion of the23d occupied the southern half of thecrescent with the remainder of the2.3d in reserve. On the beaches in therear, artillery battalions from the10th and 14th Marines, engineer bat-talions, and other special troops wereon alert.

The Japanese, meanwhile, werepreparing for their counterattack. Be-cause of shattered communicationslines, it could not be a coordinatedoperation. Units would act on theirown under Colonel Ogata's generalorder of 28 June to "destroy the ene-my on beaches with one blow, espe-cially where time prevents quickmovement of forces within theisiland."

They had on the left or northernflank of the Marine lines 600 to 1,000naval troops at the Ushi Point air-fields. Near Mount Lasso, opposite

By the time the assault waves landed, most, if not all, JapaneseLeach defense weapons had been destroyed by the preinva-

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87701sion bombardments. This Japanese navy-type 25mm machinecannon was knocked out before it could disrupt the landings.

Even enemy weapons, such as this Japanese 120mm type 10 naval dual-purposegun 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) ariddestroyer Norman Scott (DD 690) causing casualties before being destroyed.

Department of Defense Photo (TJSMC) 91349

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the center of the Marine lines, weretwo battalions of the 50th InfantryRegiment and a tank company, about1,500 men all told. On the west coast,facing the Marine right flank, wereabout 250 men from an infantrycompany of the 50th Regiment, atank detachment and an anti-tanksquad.

South of Mount Lasso, nearly sixmiles from the White Beaches, wasthe Japanese Mobile CounterattackForce—a 900-man battalion of the135th Infantry Regiment, equippedwith new rifles and demolitioncharges. Its Journey toward thenorthwestern beaches and the Ma-rine lines was perilous. All move-ments in daylight were under airsurveillance and vulnerable toAmerican fire power. But the battal-ion set out under its commander—aCaptain Izumi — and was hit onseveral occasions by unobserved ar-tillery and naval gunfire. Izumipushed on and got to his objectivethrough skillful use of terrain for forconcealment. At 2230 he began prob-ing the center of the Marine line

where the 2d Battalion, 24th Marinesunder Garretson was tied in with the3d Battalion under Chambers.

"While most of these Japanesecrept along just forward of the lines:'Carl Hoffman wrote, ' . . a two-manreconnaissance detail climbed up ona battered building forward of the24th Marines and audaciously (orstupidly) commenced jotting notesabout, or drawing sketches of, thefront lines. This impudent gesturewas rewarded with a thundering con-centration of U.S. artillery fire."

Chambers had a vivid memory ofthat night:

There was a big gully that ranfrom the southeast to northwestand right into the western edgeof our area. Anybody in theirright mind could have figuredthat if there was to be any coun-terattacks, that gully would beused .

During the night. . . my menwere reporting that they werehearing a lot of Japanese chat-tering down in the gully .

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

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 5729Splanes supporting the drive across Tinian. Note the trees bentover by the force of shock waves caused by the eruption.

Amphibian tractors line up waiting to discharge their Marine passengers on thebeach. The almost complete devastation of Japanese beachhead defenses, whichwas not entirely expected by the Marines, permitted this peaceful combat landing.

Departnent of Defense Photo (USMC) 93379

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