by hand a couple of 75mm my men were manning a close encounter... · artillery, anti-tank guns,...

They hit us about midnight inK company's area. They hauledby hand a couple of 75mmhowitzers with them and whenthey got them up to where theycould fire at us, they hit us veryhard. I think K company did apretty damn good job butabout 150, 200 laps managed topush through [the 1,500 yards]to the beach area

When the laps hit the rearareas, all the artillery andmachine guns started shootinglike hell. Their fire was comingfrom the rear and grazing rightup over our heads. . . . In themeantime, the enemy that hit Lcompany was putting up a hellof a fight within 75 yards ofwhere I was and there wasn't adamn 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

37mm guns on the left flankand was firing nnister. Two ofmy men were manning a

machine gun [Cpl Alfred 1. Dai-gle and Pfc Orville H. Showers]

These two lads laid out

While some Marines were deposited "feet dry" beyond theshoreline of the beaches, others had to land "feet wet" wading

Department of Defense Photo (TJSMC) 88088

ashore in the shallows from the amtracs which brought themin from the attack transports seen in the background.

Although frontline Marines appreciated the support of the 1st and 2d ProvisionalRocket Companies' truck-mounted 4.5-inch rocket launchers, they always dreadedthe period immediately following a barrage. The dust and smoke thrown up at thattime served as a perfect aiming point for enemy artillery and mortars which soonfollowed. Notice the flight of rockets in the upper left hand section of the picture.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92269

15

in front of their machine gun acone of Jap bodies. There wasa dead Jap officer in with them.Both of the boys were dead.

A Marine combat correspondent,described this action:

IShowers and Daigle] heldtheir fire until the Japanese were

100 yards away, then openedup. The Japanese charged,screaming, "Banzai7 firing lightmachine guns and throwinghand grenades. It seemed im-possible that the twoMarines—far ahead of theirown lines — could hold on.The next morning they werefound slumped over theirweapons, dead. No less than251 Japanese bodies were piledin front of them... . The NavyCross was awarded posthu-mously to Daigle and the SilverStar posthumously to Showers.

Just before daybreak, Chambersrecalled, two tank companies showedup, commanded by Major Robert I.Neiman. They "wanted to get rightat the enemy" and Chambers sentthem off to an area held by Compa-nies K and L. Neiman returned inabout a half hour and said, "Youdon't need tanks. You need undertak-ers. I never saw so many dead Japs."

Another large contingent ofJapanese troops was "stacked up" by

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

16

Marine inspects the enemy dead near a destroyed tank. Notethe placement of the bullet holes in the helmets in the ditch.


Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 87645For Tinian, as in the Marshall Islands and the Saipan and Guam operations, DUKWs(amphibian trucks) were loaded with artillery pieces and ammunition at the mountout area. At the objective beaches, they were driven ashore right to the designatedgun emplacements enabling the gun crews to get their weapons laid in and firingquickly. Here, an A-frame unloads a 75mm pack howitzer from an Army DLIKW.

the 75mm pack howitzer gunners ofBattery D of the 14th Marines, sup-ported by the .50-caliber machineguns of Batteries E and F: 'They liter-ally tore the Japanese . . . to pieces:'Altogether about 600 Japanese werekilled in their attack on the center.

On the left flank, 1st Battalion,24th Marines, came under attack at0200 from about 600 Special NavalLanding Force troops out of the bar-racks at the Ushi Point airfields.Company A, hit so hard it wasreduced at one point to only 30 menwith weapons, was forced to drawreinforcements from engineers,corpsmen, communicators, andmembers of the shore party. Illumi-nation flares were fired over the bat-tlefield, allowing the Marines to use37mm cannister shells, machine gunfire, and mortars to good effect. Thefight continued until dawn whenmedium tanks from the 4th TankBattalion lumbered in to break up thetast attacking groups. At that point,many Japanese began using theirgrenades to commit suicide.

As the sun rose, 476 Japanese bod-ies were counted in this sector of thedefensive crescent, most of them infront of the Company A position.

The last enemy attack that nighthit the right or southern flank of theMarines beginning at 0330 when sixJapanese tanks (half of the Japanesetank force on Tinian) clattered upfrom the direction of Tinian Town toattack the 23d Marines position.They were met by fire from Marineartillery, anti-tank guns, bazookas,and small arms. Lieutenant Jim Lu-cas, a professional reporter who en-listed in the Marine Corps shortlyafter the attack on Pearl Harbor andwas commissioned in the field, wasthere:

The three lead tanks brokethrough our wall of fire. Onebegan to glow blood-red,turned crazily on its tracks andcareened into a ditch: A second,mortally wounded, turned itsmachine guns on its tormentors,firing into the ditches in a last

desperate effort to fight its wayfree. One hundred yards moreand it stopped dead in its tracks.The third tried frantically toturn and then retreat, but ourmen closed in, literally blastingit apart. . . . Bazookas knockedout a fourth tank with a directhit which killed the driver. Therest of the crew piled out of theturret screaming. The fifthtank, completely surrounded,attempted to flee. Bazookasmade short work of it. Anotherhit set it afire and its crew wascremated.The sixth tank was chased off, ac-

cording to Colonel Jones, by a Ma-rine driving a jeep. Some appraisersof this action believe only five tankswere involved. In any case, the des-truction of these tanks did not endthe fight on the right flank. Infantryunits of the 50th Regiment continuedto attack in the zone of 2d Battalion,23d Marines. They were repulsedand killed in great numbers, largelythrough the effective use of 37mm

anti-tank guns using cannister shot.In "the last hopeless moments of theassault," Hoffman wrote, "some of thewounded Japanese destroyed them-selves by detonating a magnetic tankmine which produced a terrific blast:'

From the Japanese standpoint, thenight's work had been a disaster:1,241 bodies left on the battlefield;several hundred more may have beencarted away during the hight. Fewerthan 100 Marines were wounded orkilled. "The loss of these [Japanese]troops;' the historian Frank Houghhas written:

broke the back of thedefense of Tinian. With theircommunications shattered bysustained fire from Saipan andincreasing fire from Tinian itself

the survivors were capableof only the weakest, most dazedsort of resistance.. . . Now andagain during the next sevendays, small groups took advan-tage of the darkness to [launchnight attacksi, but for the mostpart they simply withdrew in

A line of skinnishers was the formation normally used at Tinian even where therewas no enemy contact. A platoon from the 2d Marines pushes forward while anobservation plane (OY) circles overhead. High ground in the distance is part ofa long spine extending straight south from Mount Lasso, an objective to be taken.

Marine Corps Historical Collection

17

no particular order until thereremained nowhere to withdraw.That was a common judgment af-

ter the Tinian battle had ended. Butat the time, according to the 4th Di-vision intelligence officer, LieutenantColonel Gooderham McCormick, aMarine Reserve officer who later be-came mayor of Philadelphia, thingswere not so clear: 'We still believed[after the counterattack] the enemycapable of a harder fight . . andfrom day to day during our advanceexpected a bitter fight that never.materialized:'

Nevertheless, a lot of hard worklay ahead. One of the most demand-ing tasks was the simple but exhaust-ing job of humping through canefields in terrific heat, humidity, andfrequent monsoon downpours, fear-ful not only of sniper fire, mines, or

booby traps, but fearful as well offires that could sweep through thecane fields, incinerating anyone intheir path.

Lieutenant Colonel William W."Bucky" Buchanan was the assistantnaval gunfire officer for the 4th Di-vision at Tinian. His career later tookhim to Vietnam. After his retirementas a brigadier general he recalled theTinian campaign:

We used the same tactics onTinian that we did on Saipan:that is, a hand-holding, linearoperation, like a bunch ofbrush-beaters, people shootinggrouse or something, the ideabeing to flush out every manconsistently as we go down,rather than driving down the

18

main road with a fork and cut-ting this off and cutting this offin what I call creative tactics,you see. But this was the easi-est thing and the safest thing todo. And who can criticize it? Itwas successful. Here, again,what little resistance was leftwas pushed into the end of theisland . . . and quickly col-lapsed.

The grouse-shooting metaphor issimplistic but even the 4th Divisioncommander, Major General CliftonB. Cates, thought the campaign hadits sporting aspects: "The fightingwas different from most any that wehad experienced because it was goodterrain. . . . It was a good clean oper-ation and I think the men really en-joyed it:'

Before the "brush beating" could

Aerial Reconnaissance and Photographyn the months leading up to the invasion, intensivereconnaissance was undertaken. The first aerialphotos of 1944 had been acquired back in February

when U.S. carrier planes attacked Saipan. Others were ob-tained in April and May by photo planes based at Eniwe-tok. These early photographs were of little use to invasionplanners. Their quality was poor and many were taken atangles that distorted the terrain.

These inadequacies hampered the Saipan planners butTinian was another story. "Perhaps no other Pacific island

Marine Corps analysts later concluded, "became sofamiliar to the assault forces because of thorough and ac-curate lphotography andi mapping prior to the landings:'

We took off from Saipan and of course the minuteyou were airborne you were over Tinian. I had talkedit over with Muller and told him that the last beachwe would overfly would be the one we were goingto hit. I said, "Let's take a look at a lot of other beachesfirst and fly over the interior:' We made passes atseveral beaches. I was standing up in a blister whereI could see and my officers had the bomb bays openand were looking down. We flew around maybe 20or 30 minutes, and then we made a big loop and cameback over the beaches we were going to land on. I'mglad we did because we spotted. . . mines in the waterwhich the Navy got out.

We zoomed in on Mount Lasso, which was the onlymountain on Tinian. The island was just one big canefield, and Mount Lasso was directly ahead of ourbeaches. Muller started pulling out and I began to seewhite things zipping by outside the plane. . . . I wasfighting to keep my stomach down because a fast ele-vator is too much for me. I asked: "What's that?" Hereplied, "Twenty millimeter. Where do you want togo now ?" I said, "Saipan. There are no foxholes uphere:'

A lot of the familiarization came from first-hand obser-vation by division, regimental, and battalion commanderswho used observation planes to conduct their own recon-naissance of the Tinian beaches and inland terrain. Lieu-tenant Colonel Justice M. Chambers, commander of the3d Battalion, 25th Marines, described his preinvasion visitto the island:

There was a lieutenant commander Muller, a navalaviator, who apparently had a set of roving orders.He had brought his flight of three Liberators to Sai-pan . . . . I thought it would be a good idea to takemy company commanders and overfly the beachesthat we're going to use . . . . So the 3rd Battaliongroup took the flight and practically all the battal-ions did the same.

The photographic coverage of Tinian, along withprisoners and documents captured at Saipan, and other in-telligence available to U.S. commanders, made them, ac-cording to the official historç "almost as familiar with theJapanese strength at Tinian as was Colonel Ogata [theJapanese commanderb"

begin in proper order, three thingsneeded to be achieved. First, the 2dMarine Division had to be putashore. This task was completed onthe morning of 26 July — Jig plus 2.

Second, Japanese stragglers andpockets of resistance in the island'snorthern sector had to be squashed.That job, for all practical purposes,was pretty well completed on the26th as the 2d Division swept acrossthe Ushi Point airfields, reached theeast coast, and made a turn to thesouth. (Two days later, Seabees hadthe Ushi Point fields in operation forArmy P-47 Thunderbolt fighters).Also on the 26th, the 4th Divisionhad seized Mount Maga in the centerof the island and had forced ColonelOgata and his staff to abandon their

command post on Mount Lassowhich fell to the Marines without astruggle.

The third objective — to create forthe drive south a skirmish line of in-fantry and tanks stretching all theway across the island — was also ac-complished on the 26th. The 4th Di-vision lined up in the western half ofthe island with the 23d Marines onthe coast, the 24th in the center, andthe 25th on the left flank. The 2d Di-vision lined up with the 2d Marineson the east coast and the 6th Marinesin the center, tied in to the 25th. The8th Marines remained in the north tomop up.

All this was accomplished withonly minor casualties. For 26 July, forexample, the 2nd Division reportedtwo killed and 14 wounded, Theheaviest losses since the first day andnight of fighting had been sustainedby the 14th Marines, the 4th Divi-sion's artillery regiment, in the hoursfollowing the Japanese counterattack.An enemy shell hit the 1st Battalion'sfire 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; 14other Marines at the battalion head-quarters were wounded. Virtually all

Tramping the cane was a tiring work, especially when the direction of the advancedid not parallel the rows of the fields. Each stalk was strong enough to trip a mancareless about where he stepped. Advancing through such a field was fraught withdanger, also, from hidden trip wires attached to demo litions, and from dug-inJapanese. In addition, the dry cane fields could easily catch fire and trap the Marines.


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of the casualties sustained by thatregiment during the Tinian campaignwere taken on this single day, 25 July:13 of the 14 killed, and 22 of the 29wounded.

On the morning of 27 July, the"brush beating" drive to the south be-gan in earnest. General Schmidt'splan for the first two days of thedrive alternated the main thrust be-tween the two divisions. In the offi-cial history of the operation, thetactic was likened to "a man elbow-ing his way through the crowd;'swinging one arm and then the other.

The 2d Division got the heavierwork on the 27th. XXIV Corps Ar-tillery firing from southern Saipan,softened up suspected enemy posi-tions early in the morning and the di-vision jumped off at 0730. Itadvanced rapidly, harassed by

sporadic small arms fire. By 1345 ithad reached its objective, gainingabout 4,000 yards in just over sixhours. The 4th Division moved outlate in the morning against "negligi-ble opposition;' reached its objectiveby noon and then called it a day. AJapanese prisoner complained to hiscaptors, "You couldn't drop a stickwithout bringing down artillery:'

The next morning, 28 July, the 4thgot the "swinging elbow" job. It wasnow evident that the remainingJapanese defenders were rapidly retir-ing to the hills and caves along thesouthern coast. So opposition to theMarine advance was virtually nil.The 4th moved more than two milesin less than four hours with troopsriding on half-tracks and tanks.Jumping off again early in the after-noon in "blitz fashion;' they overran

20

the airfield at Gurguan Point, led byMajor Richard K. Schmidt's 4th TankBattalion, and quit for the day at1730 after gaining 7,300 yards —a lit-tle more than four miles. The Zd Di-vision, given light duty under theSchmidt plan, moved ahead a fewhundred yards, reached its objectivein a couple of hours and dug in toawait another morning.

General Cates later recalled how hespurred on his 4th Division troops:"I said, 'Now, look here men, the[Hawaiian) island of Maui is waitingfor us. See those ships out there? Thequicker you get this over with, thequicker we'll be back there: Theyalmost ran over that island:'

On the 29th General Schmidtdropped the "elbowing" tactic and or-dered both divisions to move as farand as fast as "practical." Opposition

Marines of the 2d Division find some of the most difficultterrain on Tinian as they move up towards the top of Mount

Department of Defense Photo (USMC 87900Lasso, one of the highest points on the island. Tinian, for themost part, was flat and level, and was under cultivation,

had been so light that preparatoryfires were canceled to save unneededwithdrawals from the diminshingsupplies of artillery shells left on Sai-pan and to prevent "waste of navalgunfire on areas largely deserted bythe enemy:'

The 2d Marines on the eastern ter-rain ran into pockets of resistance ona hill at Masalog Point; the 6th Ma-rines encountered a 20-man Japanesepatrol that attempted to penetrate theregiment's lines after dark. The 25thtook sniper fire as it moved throughcane fields and later in the day en-gaged in a heavy firefight withJapanese troops fighting from dug-in positions. The Marines sufferedseveral casualties and one of theirtanks was disabled in this fight. Butthe resistance was overcome. The.24th Marines, operating near thewest coast, ran into Japanese posi-tions that included a series of mutu-ally supporting bunkers. The 4thrank Battalion reported that the area"had to be overrun twice by tanks"

before resistance ended.By nightfall, more than half of

Tinian island was in Marine hands.Troops of the 4th Division could seeTinian Town from their foxholes.This was good for morale but thenight was marred by the weather andenemy activity. A soaking rain fellthrough the night. Enemy mortartubes and artillery pieces fired inces-santly, drawing counterbattery firefrom Marine gunners. There wereprobes in front of the 3d Battalion,25th Marines, silenced by mortar andsmall arms fire; 41 Japanese bodieswere found in the area at daylight.

On 30 July—Jig plus 6—TinianTown became the principal objectiveof the 4th Division and, specifically,Colonel Franklin A. Hart's 24th Ma-rines. At 0735 all of the division's ar-tillery battalions laid down prepara-tory fires in front of the Marine lines.After 10 minutes, the firing stoppedand the troops moved out. At thesame time, two destroyers and cruis-ers lying in Sunharon Harbor off the

Tinian Town beaches began an hour-long bombardment of slopes aroundthe town in support of the Marines.The regiment's 1st Battalion had ad-vanced 600 yards when it came un-der heavy fire from caves along thecoast north of the town. With thehelp of tanks and armored amphib-ians operating offshore this problemwas overcome. Flamethrowing tanksworked over the caves, allowing en-gineers to seal them up with demoli-tion charges. In one cave, a 75mmgun was destroyed.

The regiment entered the ruins ofTinian Town at 1420. Except for oneJapanese soldier who was eliminat-ed on the spot, the town was desert-ed. After searching through therubble for snipers and documents,the Marines drove on to the 0-7 lineobjective south of town. Theirgreatest peril was from mines andbooby traps planted in beach areasand roads.

As the 24th moved south, the 25thMarines were seizing Airfield Num-

I3Gen Merritt A. Edson, (with binoculars) assistant divisioncommander of the 2d Marine Division, follows the progress

of his troops not far from the scene of action. Gen Edson wasawarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism on Guadalcanal.


21

ber 4 on the eastern outskirts of Tin-ian Town. The unfinished facility, aprisoner revealed, was being rushedto completion to accommodate reliefplanes promised by Tokyo. Only oneaircraft was parked on the crushed-coral air strip — a small, Zero-typefighter. Flying suits, goggles, andother equipment were found in asupply room.

Enroute to the airfield, the 25thhad taken light small arms fire andwhile crossing the airstrip was mor-tared from positions to the south.This was the 25th's last action of theTinian campaign. It went into reserveand was relieved that night by unitsof the 23d Marines and the 1st Bat-talion, 8th Marines.

The 2d Division, operating to theeast of the 4th, ran into occasionalopposition from machine gun posi-tions and a 70mm howitzer. The 3dBattalion, 2d Marines, had theroughest time. After silencing thehowitzer, it attacked across an openfield and chased a Japanese force intoa large cave where, with the help ofa flame-throwing tank, 89 Japanesewere killed and four machine gunswere destroyed. Soon afterward thebattalion came under mortar fire. "Itis beyond my memory as to the num-ber of casualties the 3d Battalionsuffered at that time;' the unit's com-mander, Lieutenant Colonel WalterF. Layer, later reported. "1 personal-ly rendered first aid to two wound-ed Marines and remember seeing sixor seven Marines who were eitherwounded or killed by that enemymortar 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 timeand was dug in by 1830. About 80percent of the island was now inAmerican hands.

The Japanese were now corneredin a small area of southeastern Tini-an. The Marines "had advanced sorapidly that only four square miles

of the island remained for safe firingby ships not supporting battalions[i.e., not with shore spotters]," ac-cording to a report on 30 July by RearAdmiral Harry W. Hill, commanderof the Northern Attack Force.

The Marine commander for theoperation, Major General Schmidt,saw the end in sight and late on theafternoon of 30 July issued an oper-ations order calling on the divisionsto drive all the way to the southeastcoastline, seize all territory remain-ing in enemy hands and "annihilatethe opposing Japanese:'

This was not a trifling assignment;it produced the heaviest fighting sincethe counterattack on the night of JigDay. A Japanese warrant officer cap-tured on 29 July estimated that 500troops of the 56th Naval Guard Forceand from 1,700 to 1,800 troops of the50th Infantry Regiment remained inthe southeastern area in a battle-ready condition. American intelli-gence estimates on 29 July, based ondaily reports from the divisions,reckoned that 3,000 Japanese soldi-ers and sailors had been killed ortaken prisoner up to that point, Ifthat was the case, two-thirds of the

nearly 9,000 Japanese defenders werestill alive on the island.

The terrain occupied by theJapanese main force was rugged,difficult to reach or traverse and well-suited for defense. Outside of Tini-an Town the gentle landscape ended,with the ground rising to a highplateau 5,000 yards long and 2,000yards wide, with altitudes higherthan 500 feet. The plateau was rockyand covered with thick brush. Therewere many caves. Along the eastcoast, the cliff walls rose steeply andappeared impossible to scale. The ap-proaches to the plateau were blockedby many cliffs of this sort as well asby jungle growth. A road in thecenter of the plateau, leading to itstop, was reported by a prisoner to bemined. The plateau was the enemy'slast redoubt.

It became the object of the mostintense bombardments any Japaneseforce had yet experienced to date inWorld War II. Marine artillery regi-ments on the island and the XXIVCorps Artillery on southern Saipanfired throughout the night of 30-31July on the wooded clifflines the Ma-rines would face during their assault.

As a Navy corpsman administers a bottle of plasma to a wounded Marine, thestretcher bearers wait patiently to carry him on board a landing craft which willevacuate him to a hospital ship offshore, where he will be given full treatment.


22

At 0600, the battleships Tennesseeand California, the heavy cruiserLouisville, and the light cruisersMontpelier and Binninghani beganthe first of two sustained bombard-ments that morning. They fired for:75 minutes, then halted to allow a 40-minute strike on the plateau by 126

P-47s, North American Mitchell B-25bombers, and Grumman Avengertorpedo bombers from the escort car-rier Kit kun Bay. The planes dropped69 tons of explosives before the off-shore gunfire resumed for another 35minutes. All told, the battleships andcruisers fired approximately 615 tons

of shells at their targets. Artillerymenof the 10th Marines fired about 5,000rounds 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 fromwest coast to east coast were the 24th,23d, 8th, 6th and 2d Marines. Thetask of the 24th was to clear out thewestern coastal area, with one bat-talion assigned to seizure of theplateau. The 2d Marines was to sealoff the east coast at the base of theplateau. The 6th, 8th, and 23d Ma-rines would assault the cliff areas andmake their way to the top of theplateau.

The 24th, jumping off with the 23dat 0830, moved into the coastal plainand immediately encountered brushand undergrowth so dense that tankoperations were severely hampered.As compensation, armored amphib-ians lying offshore provided heavyfires against enemy beach positionsand covered the regiment's right flankas it made its way down the coast.A platoon-size Japanese beach unitlaunched a foolish counterattack on

Marine Corps Historical CollectionSome badly wounded casualties died of their severe injuries after having been evacu-ated from Tinian. Those who succumbed to their wounds were buried at sea.

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

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

Department ol Defense Photo (USMC) 91365

23

the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines atabout 1000. The Japanese were an-nihilated. Later, flame-throwingtanks burned off brush and under-growth concealing Japanese riflemen.

On the regiment's left flank, the 3dBattalion was in assault at the baseof the plateau. It encountered mini-mal opposition until about 1600

when it began to receive rifle andmachine gun fire from cliff positions.Tanks were called on but soon foundthemselves mired in a minefield andwere held up for several hours whileengineers cleared 45 mines from thearea.

The 1st Battalion, 23d Marines,encountered similar troubles. As the

regiment approached the plateau, itran into dense small arms fire fromtwo positions — a small village at thebase of the cliff and from the cliff faceitself. It also began receiving firefrom a "large-caliber weapon:' Lack-ing tank support the Marines pressedforward, running a few yards, divingon their bellies, getting up, and ad-vancing again. Medium tanks finallycame up in search of this elusive andwell-concealed weapon. One of themtook six quick hits from the con-cealed position of this Japanese gun.A second tank was hit but in theprocess the enemy position was dis-covered: a camouflaged, concretebunker housing a 47mm antitankgun and 20 troops, all of whom werekilled.

The 2d Battalion of the 23d hadsimilar difficulties. After coming un-der fire from riflemen and machinegunners, one of its supporting tankswas disabled by a mine. After itscrew was taken to safety by anothertank, the disabled vehicle was seizedby the Japanese and used as an ar-

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 152074Tank-infantry tactics perfected in prior operations proved successful on Tinian aswell. The riflemen served as the eyes of the armored vehicle and would direct thetank crewmen over a telephone mounted in a box on the rear of the tank.

IVlajGen Clifton B. Cates, center, visits the command post of24th Marines commander Col Franklin A. Hart. On the left is

LtCol Charles D. Roberts, S-3 of the 24th Marines. Gen Cateswould become the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps.


24

mored machine gun nest. Othereanks soon took it out. The 23d also].ost that day two 37mm guns and aone-ton truck belonging to the regi-ment's half-track platoon. The gunsand the vehicle got too far out front,came under heavy fire and wereabandoned. A detail from the pla-toon later retrieved one of the guns,removed the breech block from theother one and brought back the.50-caliber machine gun from itsmounting on the truck.

Late in the afternoon, the 1st Bat-talion, 23d Marines, and a compa-ny from the 2d Battalion gained afoothold on top of the plateau; the3d Battalion soon followed. To theirleft, the 3d Battalion, 8th Marines,shrugged off small arms fire early inthe day and reached the base of thecliff where it stalled for the night.

The 1st Battalion had better luck.Company A made it to the top of theplateau at 1650, followed by a pla-toon from Company C. Soon after,the whole battalion was atop the hill.It was followed by Companies E andC of the 2d Battalion.

The Company C commander wasCaptain Carl W. Hoffman, who laterwrote the definitive histories of theSaipan and Tinian campaigns. In anoral history interview, he describedhis own experiences on top of theplateau the night of 31 July:

By the time we got up therethere wasn't enough day-

light left to get ourselvesproperly barbed-wired in, to getour fields of fire established, tosite our interlocking bands ofmachine gun fire — all the thingsthat should be done in prepar-

ing a good defense.By dusk, the enemy com-

menced a series of probing at-tacks. Some Japanese intrudedinto our positions. It was a com-pletely black night. So, withJapanese moving around in ourpositions, our troops becamevery edgy and were challengingeverybody in sight. We didn'thave any unfortunate incidentsof Marines firing on Marines

[because they] were well-seasoned by this point .

As the night wore on, the in-tensity of enemy attacks startedto build and build and build.They finally launched a fullscale banzai attack against [our]battalion . . . . The strangething the Japanese did here wasthat they executed one wave of

Tinian Town was made a shambles because U.S. commandersknew that the enemy was well emplaced, dug in, and expect-ed landings on the beaches fronting the town. As a result, they

directed a large share of the pre-Jig Day bombardment intothe waterfront and surrounding area, thereby reinforcingJapanese belie ft that this is where the Marines would land.


25

attack after another against a37mm position firing cannisterammunition .

That gun just stacked updead Japanese . . . As soon asone Marine gunner would dropanother would take his place.[Eight of 10 men who mannedthe gun were killed or wound-ed]. Soon we were nearlyshoulder-high with deadJapanese in front of thatweapon . . . . By morning wehad defeated the enemy.Around us were lots of deadones, hundreds of them as amatter of fact. From then on• . we were able to finish therest of the campaign withoutdifficulty - . People haveoften said that the Tinian cam-paign was the easiest campaign

in the Pacific .

For those Marines who werein that 37mm position up on

the escarpment, Tinian had tobe the busiest campaign withinthe Pacific war.

Hoffman had another lively ex-perience before leaving the island. Hewas a trumpet addict and carried hishorn with him all through the Pacif-ic war:

For Tinian, I didn't take anychances such as sending myhorn ashore in a machine guncart or a battalion ambulance.I had it flown over to me. Oneevening, my troops were in a lit-tle perimeter with barbed wireall around us on top of the cliff.My Marines were shouting inrequests: "Oh, You BeautifulDoll" and "Pretty Baby" andothers. While I was playingthese tunes, all of a sudden weheard this scream of "banzaL"An individual Japanese soldierwas charging right toward me

26

and right toward the barbedwire. The Marines had theirweapons ready and he musthave been hit from 14 differentdirections at once. He didn't getto throw [his] grenade. . . .

always cited him as the in-dividual who didn't like mymusic. He was no supporter ofmy trumpet playing. But . . . Ieven continued my little concertafter we had accounted for him.

A final banzai attack on the nightthe 37mm guns had their big harvest,occurred in the early morning hoursof 1 August. A 150-man Japaneseforce attacked the 1st Battalion, 28thMarines, on Hoffman's left flank. Af-ter 30 minutes, the main thrust of theattack was spent and at dawn theJapanese withdrew; 100 bodies lay inan area 70 yards square in front ofthe position of Company E, 2d Bat-talion, 28th Marines. The 8th Ma-

A lone member of the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Divisionpatrolling through the outskirts of Tinian Town, pauses at a

Marine Corps HistoriS Collectiontoni of a Shinto shrine. The ruins about him give proof ofthe heavy shelling visited upon the town before the landing.

rines took 74 casualties that night.The following morning the two di-

visions went back to work. The 2dmoved across the plateau toward itseastern cliffs, the 4th toward cliffs onthe south and west. When theyreached the escarpment's edge, over-looking the ocean, their job was es-sentially done. At 1855, GeneralSchmidt declared the island "secure,"meaning that organized resistancehad ended. But not the killing.Hundreds of Japanese troops re-mained holed up in the caves pock-mocking the southern cliffs rising upfrom the ocean.

On the morning of 2 August, aJapanese force of 200 men salliedforth in an attack on the 3d Battal-ion, 6th Marines. After two hours of

combat, 119 Japanese were dead.Marine losses included the battalioncommander, Lieutenant Colonel JohnW. Easley. Shortly afterwords, theregiment's 2d Battalion, led by Lieu-tenant Colonel Edmund B. Games,was hit by 100 Japanese, 30 of whomwere killed before the unit withdrew.

Contacts of this kind continued formonths. By the end of the year,Colonel Clarence R. Wallace's 8thMarines, left on Tinian for mopping-up operations, had lost 38 killed and125 wounded; Japanese losses were500 dead.

Beginning on 1 August, there werelarge-scale surrenders by civiliansleaving the caves in which they hadtaken refuge. Marine intelligenceofficers estimated that 5,000 to 10,000

civilians had been hiding out in thesoutheast sector.

Marine Major General James L.Underhill, who took command of theisland as military governor on 10 Au-gust, became responsible for the careand feeding of these civilians. Theflow of civilian refugees began onAugust 1, he recalled:

About 500 came through im-mediately, the next day about800, then a thousand and thentwo thousand and so on in in-creasing numbers until about8,000 were in. The remaining3,000 hid out in caves and drib-bled in over a period of months.About 30 percent adult males,20 percent adult females, and

This cliff was a formidable obstacle to movement on 31 July.Cutting practically across the entire island, it providedproblems for both divisions. Here, 2d Division Marines climb

the rockly slopes toward the flat plateau on top. The 1st and2d Battalions, 8th Marines, spent a busy night (31 July4 Au-gust) of the operating holding a road that curled up this slope.


27


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.


28

about 50 percent children.Many of them were in badshape — hungry, wounded, illand with few possessions be-yond the clothes they werewearing.It was estimated that about 4,000

civilians were killed in the bombard-ments of Tinian and in fighting onthe island. On Saipan, Marines hadbeen helpless to prevent mass suicidesamong the civilian population. Theywere more successful at Tinian. Un-fortunate incidents occurred—civilians, for example, dying underMarine fire after wandering into thelines at night.

There were also suicides and ritu-al murders, as indicated in a reportfrom the 23d Marines on 3 August:

Several freak incidents oc-curred during the day: (1) Japchildren thrown [by their par-ents] over cliff into ocean; (2)[Japanese] military groupedcivilians in numbers of 15 to 20and attached explosive chargesto them, blowing them to bits;(3) Both military and civilianslined up on the cliff and hurledthemselves into the ocean; (4)Many civilians pushed over cliffby IJapanesel soldiers.

29

Efforts to prevent incidents of thiskind were generally successful. Ma-rines used amplifiers on land and off-shore to promise good treatment tocivilians and soldiers who would sur-render peacefully. "Thousands ofcivilians;' Hoffman wrote, "manyclad in colorful Japanese silk,responded to the promises — thoughit was plain from the expressions ontheir faces that they expected theworst:'

By 14 August the entire 4th Divi-sion had embarked on the long tripto its base camp on Maui. It had suf-

fered in this brief operation morethan 1,100 casualties, including 212killed. Its next assignment would beIwo Jima.

The 2d Division remained in theMarianas, setting up a base camp onSaipan where the 2d and 6th regi-ments took up residence in mid-August. The 8th Marines remainedon Tinian for mopping-up purposesuntil October 25, when the 2d and3d Battalions moved to Saipan, leav-ing an unhappy 1st Battalion behinduntil its relief at the end of the year.

The campaign for Tinian had costthe division 760 casualties, including105 killed. These numbers did not in-clude casualties suffered after the is-land was "secured" on 1 August.

Japanese military losses, based onbodies counted and buried, totaled5,000. Other thousands are assumedto have been sealed up in caves andunderground fortifications. Thenumber of prisoners taken was 250by some counts and 400 by others.

The capture of the Marianas gavethe Army Air Corps the B-29 basesit needed for the bombing of Japan.

In an impromptu command post set up behind his 8thMarines, Col Clarence R. Wallace, checks the progress of his


frontline troops on a situation map. The overhead ponchoprovides some protection from Tinian's constant rains.

It was not long after the initial landing that Marines encountered the civilianpopulation of Tinian. Here Marines bathe a tiny Tinian girl after she and her familyhad been removed from a hillside dugout. Following the scrubbing, new clothes werefound for the children and the entire family was taken to a place of safety in the rear

Depariment of Defense Photo (USMC) 90441

30

They were located 1,200 nauticalmiles from the home islands ofJapan, a distance ideal for the B-29with its range of 2,800 miles. Tinianbecame the home for two wings ofthe Twentieth Air Force. Threemonths after the conquest of Tinian,B-29s were hitting the Japanese main-land. Over the next year, accordingto numbers supplied by the Air Forceto historian Carl Hoffman, the B-29sflew 29,000 missions out of the Man-anas, dropped 157,000 tons of explo-sives which, by Japanese estimateskilled 260,000 people, left 9,200,000homeless, and demolished or burned2,210,000 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

Former Marine Corps Combat Correspondent SSgt FedericoCkiveria looks at photograph of himself giving an interned

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 419222Tinian child candy 25 years earlier. Claveria participatedin the initial landings on Roi-Namur and Saipan also.

Top commanders gather for the flagraising on 3 August 1944 at the conclu-sion of Tinian operations. From left are RAdm Harry W. Hill; MajGen HarrySchmidt; Adm Raymond L. Spruance; LtGen Holland M. Smith; VAdm RichmondKelly Turner; MajGen Thomas A. Watson; and MajGen Clifton B. Cates.


31

a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima.Two days later a second nuclearweapon was dropped on Nagasaki.The next day, the Japanese govern-ment surrendered.

In his official history of the 2d Ma-rine Division, Richard W. Johnstonrecords the reaction when news ofthe surrender reached the division atits base on Saipan:

They looked at Tinian's cleanand rocky coast, at the coralboulders where they had goneashore, and they thought of theforbidding coasts of Japan — thecoasts that awaited them in thefall. "That Tinian was a prettygood investment, I guess;' oneMarine 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.


32

In addition to the official MarineCorps histories of the Tinian campaign,Lt John C. Chapin, The Fourth MarineDivision in World War II (Washington,August, 1945); John Costello, The PacificWar (New York, 1981); John Dower,War Without Mercy: Race and Power inthe Pacific War (New York, 1986); MajCarl W. Hoffman, Saipan: The Begin-ning of the End (Washington, 1950); MajCarl W. Hoffman, The Seizure of Tini-an (Washington, 1951); Frank OlneyHough, The Island War: The U.S. Ma-rine Corps in the Pacific (Philadelphia,1947); Jeter A. Isely and Philip A.C:rowl, The U.S. Marine Corps and Am-phibious War (Princeton, 1951); RichardW Johnston, Follow Mel The Story ofthe Second Marine Division in WorldWar II (New York, 1948); Allen R.Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History ofthe United States Marine Corps (NewYork, 1991); J. Robert Moskin, The U.S.Marine Corps Story (Boston, 1992); CarlW. 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:History of U.S. Marine Corps Opera-tions in World War II, vol III (Washing-ton, 1966); Ronald H. Spector, EagleAgainst the Sun (New York, 1985).

The transcripts of the following re-tired Marines interviewed for the MarineCorps Oral History Program reside inthe Oral History Collection, MarineCorps Historical Center, WashingtonNavy Yard, Washington, D.C. Theirroles at Tinian are as indicated: BGenWilliam W. Buchanan, assistant navalgunfire officer, 4th Marine Division; GenCli:Eton B. Cates, commanding general,4th Marine Division; LtCol Justice M.Chambers, commanding officer, 3d Bat-talion, 25th Marines; MajGen Carl W.Hoffman, commanding officer, Compa-ny C, 2d Battalion, 8th Marines; GenRobert E. 1-fogaboom, G-3, NorthernTroops Landing Force; MajGen Louis R.Jones, commanding officer, 23d Ma-rines; BGen Frederick J. Karch, S-3, 14thMa:rines; MajGen Wood B. Kyle, com-manding officer, 1st Battalion, 2d Ma-rines; MajGen William W. Rogers, chiefof staff, 4th Marine Division; LtGenJames L. Underhill, island commander,Tinian.

R ichard Harwood, a journalist and newsexecutive, retired as deputy managing edi-

tor of The Washington Post in 1988. He nowwrites an editorial column for The Post which isdistributed nationally by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service. He served in theU.S. Marines from 1942 until 1946, and spent 30months in the Pacific. As a radio operator in theV Amphibious Corps he participated in fouroperations, including Tinian.

In A Different War: Marines in Europe and North Africa, page 32 reports AdmHewitt visited the cruiser "Helena (CL-So)" in spring 1946. This cruiser was sunk in1943. The ship the admiral boarded was its successor, the heavy cruiser Helena(CA-75). On page 27 of Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam, the 77th In-fantry Division patrolled hills to the east, rather than to the west. The date of theaction which merited a Medal of Honor for PFC Harold C. Epperson is 25 June1944, not July, as stated on page 30 of Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan

945 iflWORLD WAR II

ft/ 'A'

91 W \Aj (I

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in theWorld War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines bythe History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observanceof the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part bya bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband,Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a PurpleHeart.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMSBrigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR,WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANTGeorge C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISIONRobert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information

Specialist; Catherine A. ICerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical CenterBuilding 58, Washington Navy Yard

Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1994PCN 190 003127 00

by hand a couple of 75mm my men were manning a close encounter... · artillery, anti-tank guns,...

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