Their Backs against the Sea

chapter 2

The Infernal Beach

FOR FULLY two and a half years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war between Japan and the United States remained far away from the shores of Saipan and her sister islands in the Marianas, except for Japan's quick and easy takeover of Guam. During this time the Marianas served the Japanese primarily as the supply and staging bases for troops, ships, and planes in battles fought far to the east and south. In May 1943, just over a year before the US attack, the Japanese had slightly more than nine hundred military troops stationed on the island—not nearly enough to repel any type of incursion.

Admiral Marc A. Mitscher and his Task Force 58, after administering a two-day shellacking of Truk in February 1944, turned toward the Marianas and gave Saipan its first baptism of fire. Suddenly what had always been considered a rear area of the war had now become front and center. And Japan got cracking—or tried to. But so did the US submarines.

On the afternoon of 29 February a Japanese transport, the Sakito Maru, was torpedoed and sunk with 3,080 troops aboard. Only 1,688 were rescued, but according to Japanese reports, all their weapons were lost except for seven rifles, one grenade thrower, two light machine guns, and 150 bayonets. American submarines played havoc with Japanese shipping for the next three months.

The last major Japanese troop movement to Saipan was the transfer of the 43rd Division, and the first shipment of troops managed to avoid the US submarines. It arrived only a few weeks before the American invasion and would play a leading role in defending the island. Its commander, Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito, would assume control of the Saipan defenses. But a second shipment set sail on 30 May when a convoy of seven transports carrying more than seven thousand troops of the 43rd Division headed south. It was subjected to almost constant submarine attack, and within three days five of the seven transports were lost.

A group of three US attack submarines, known as "Blair's Blasters"—the USS Shark, Pilotfish, and Pintado—commanded by Captain Leon Nelson Blair, was instrumental in all five of these sinkings, losses that undermined Japan's ability to defend the island.

About 80 percent of the troops from the convoy were saved, but when the survivors landed on Saipan, they arrived without weapons or equipment. Altogether, from January to early June 1944, the Japanese dispatched about 45,000 Army troops to the Marianas. Of these, 40,000 were designated for Saipan, though only about 30,000 reached their destination. Although many of the survivors were reorganized and re-equipped, many others—up to 5,000 soldiers—became stragglers on Saipan, armed only with their resolution to die for their emperor.

All told, US submarines accounted for the loss of more than mere manpower. In many cases, essential building materials went to the bottom of the ocean along with the men. Captain Blair's wolf pack alone completed twenty-two successful war patrols in enemy waters, sinking thirty-four enemy ships, including two 4,700-ton freighters. Blair sent ships transporting 7,200 Japanese soldiers—and twenty-two tanks—to a watery grave.

A report from the chief of staff of Japan's 31st Army—equivalent to a US Army Corps, with 25,000 to 50,000 men—gave a clear picture of the difficulties they faced in their efforts to construct adequate fortifications on Saipan. "We cannot strengthen the fortifications appreciably now unless we get material suitable for permanent construction," read the report. "Specifically, unless the units are supplied with cement, steel reinforcements for cement, barbed wire, lumber, etc., which cannot be obtained in these islands, no matter how many soldiers there are, they can do nothing in regard to fortifications but sit around with their arms folded, and the situation is unbearable."

Captain Blair was awarded the Navy Cross and a presidential Legion of Merit for his contributions to the Saipan campaign—even before it officially started. For his conduct as commander of Submarine Division 44, he was later promoted to rear admiral.

AN ENEMY DOCUMENT published on 20 May 1944—less than a month before the US landings—called for "the immediate construction of defensive positions that when they are fully developed, they can destroy the enemy landing force on the beach. We will transform these islands into a fortress so that we can expect, absolutely, to hold our airfields."

No mention was made of constructing permanent defensive positions inland. The entire Japanese scheme of defense was committed to destroying the enemy landing force "on the beach." Through counterattacks, launched during the night from specified points, the Japanese hoped to demolish the American landing units at the water's edge—if not before.

The conclusion was inescapable: despite all their efforts, the Japanese were not fully prepared for the American landings on Saipan when they came. If they had had several more months, it might have been a different story. The Japanese found it physically impossible with the means at hand to build their defenses to a point where they might successfully resist a landing by US forces. But prepared or not, the Japanese forces on Saipan were neither weak nor feeble—far from it.

Despite the shortcomings of the defensive installations, one vital characteristic of a good defensive plan was present: the individual Japanese soldier was determined to hold the island at any cost and to give his life to realize this end. It was this characteristic that would present the greatest challenge to American forces throughout the struggle for Saipan.

IN THE BREAKING dawn of 14 June—the morning before the US landings—Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf arrived off the coast of Saipan with two bombardment groups. His force included seven old battleships, eleven cruisers, twenty-six destroyers, and a small number of destroyer transports and minesweepers. Four of the old "tin cans," the USS Tennessee, Pennsylvania, California, and Maryland, were survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor two and a half years earlier.

The bombardment was especially effective against prepared gun positions used by antiaircraft units. A Japanese naval officer noted in his diary that "practically all our antiaircraft guns and machine gun positions were destroyed." Otherwise, the American preliminary bombardment was far less than perfect, leaving intact observation posts and gun emplacements protected by splinter-proof shelters that were capable of withstanding the shelling.

On the night of 14 June most of the support ships retired, with only a handful remaining to continue harassing fire along the coastline. In the early hours of 15 June, the Western Landing Group, consisting mostly of transports and LSTs (landing ship, tank) carrying the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions was slowly approaching the island from the east.

AS THE LANDING crafts moved toward shore, US carrier planes came in at treetop level to make one last assault, and the shell casings from their machine guns fell red-hot into many of the boats. Some of the troops thought they were under attack by their own planes.

The Amtracks were loaded with Marine troops. And they were the first to come under attack.

Private First Class Carl Matthews heard the sound of an incoming shell, and suddenly one of the Amtracks to his left received a direct hit and vanished into a cloud of flaming smoke. He realized that the shells were coming closer and closer, and at that moment he averted his eyes and quit looking. Instead, he started some serious praying.

He closed his eyes and thought about his home and family back in Hubbard, Texas. He thought of his mother and father and his two little sisters. They seemed so far away—almost like they were in another world.

Matthews looked at Lieutenant James Stanley Leary Jr., the leader of Matthews's 2nd Platoon of C Company, 2nd Marines. He had the most serious expression on his face that Matthews could ever remember seeing. He was probably thinking about home, Matthews thought, and realizing that some of the men in his command would likely be dead a few minutes from now.

When the Marines reached the three-hundred-yard mark from shore, the Japanese shells were coming thick and fast, just as the Japanese had planned. Every twenty-five yards or so, about once every fifteen seconds, another shell would burst. Marines who had been at Tarawa or Kwajalein knew what to expect, but the greenest troops—those with no combat experience—smoked or kept their heads down and prayed. Some of them vomited as the Amtracks heaved up and down in the choppy sea.

The Marines hit the beaches at 0843. In the landing the 6th and 8th Marine Regiments got hopelessly mixed up, and the troops ended up concentrated on Red Beach 2, Red Beach 3, and Green Beach 1, which gave the Japanese a huge target to shoot at, and the casualties in these first few minutes were tremendous. Further down the beach the 4th Marines landed in a more orderly manner.

They were supposed to advance and take Afetna Point, a small protuberance jutting into the sea, and the town of Charan Kanoa and the ridge above it. But intensive Japanese shelling caused the attack to bog down, and some of the Marines were trapped on the beaches under withering fire.

Marshall E. Harris of the 2nd Armored Amphibious Battalion was crawling slowly through the water in his tank toward Green Beach 1 and talking to a close friend, Robert Lewis, in another amphibious tank nearby when Lewis's voice was drowned out by the sudden sound of an explosion. Harris felt a hard concussion. Then there was another explosion, and he saw dark smoke and fire on the water.

"Flames boiled up out of a blackened piece of metal that I realized was Robert's tank," Harris remembered, "but my platoon commander motioned for me to keep going. I never saw Lewis again. Our armored tanks just weren't up to slugging it out with an enemy land tank because of our lack of protective armor."

The 6th Marines hit a stone wall about a hundred yards inland. The driver of Private First Class R. J. Lee's amphibious tank tried to push inland away from the beach, but a deep trench stood in its way. The driver quickly threw the tank into reverse and backed out to the water's edge. As he fired his 75-millimeter cannon, he drew an instant reply from the Japanese, and the open turret of the tank took a direct, ruinous hit.

Lee saw his platoon leader and two sergeants shot dead. He watched one of his crew take a bullet in the face and go down. Lee was reaching out to him when two bullets hit him simultaneously. "I heard my four-year-old son calling, 'Get up, Daddy, get up,' and by the grace of God—and my son—I made it back to the beach," Lee said later. "Then it was lights out for me."

The American shells and bombs had torn huge craters in the sand, and smashed and burned-out Amtracks and amphibious tanks covered the beach. Behind many of them wounded men lay in every kind of agony, awaiting evacuation.

Robert Sherrod, a correspondent for both Life and Time magazines who had been at Tarawa, scribbled in his notebook: "I fear all this smoke and noise doesn't mean many Japs killed."

LIEUTENANT COLONEL WARREN ADAMS entered the Marine Corps as a well-educated New Yorker with several degrees, including a PhD from Princeton. "They put me to training new Marines," he recalled, "but after about six classes I couldn't stand it anymore, so I went to the commandant and said I wanted to quit this teaching business and get where the action was.

"I was an officer, and the only protection I had was a .45-caliber revolver." Adams said. "It was my 'war equipment,' but when you've got a mob of people coming at you, what good is a revolver? With a revolver you got in one or two shots before you were killed, but with a machine gun, you could keep the bad guys away.

"I knew a fellow in the armory department, and I gave him a bottle of whiskey and told him I wanted a submachine gun. He gave it to me, and I used it." A couple of Adams's superior officers told him he wasn't supposed to be carrying the tommy gun, but he refused to give it up, and no one insisted.

As his boat approached the beach he realized he was scared. But then he got angry at himself for being scared—the Marines had trained him well, even in hand-to-hand combat. By the time he hit the beach he wasn't scared anymore.

Adams had fought on Kwajalein and Tarawa, but for him Saipan would be the bitterest business of the lot. He had trained with five other officers, and they had become good friends. Adams would be the only one to survive: "I was the only one with a submachine gun."

PRIVATE OLIAN THOMAS PERRY was nineteen years old when he heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. He lived in sparsely settled Leon County, Texas, and grew up in a household with eleven brothers and sisters. He had dropped out of school and was earning a living driving a concrete truck in Houston. On the Sunday when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was visiting his older brother, who was working on a rock crusher at Lamesa, Texas. He didn't even know what Pearl Harbor was when he first heard the news; he thought they were talking about some woman. But everything in the world changed forever that afternoon.

The next day he drove over to Waco along with two other young men, intent on joining something, even if it was the Coast Guard. As it turned out, the Navy and Coast Guard were out to lunch. But there was an old Marine there who said, "We never close, and we'll sign you up," so the three boys did just that. He told them to be in Waco early the next morning and they'd be put on a train and sent to Dallas. That's where they would be mustered in. They spent that night in a hotel and really thought they were living it up. The next morning they shipped out for San Diego—twenty-six of them on a train—and the old Marine got kind of tough on them. He said, "You're all Marines now, and from now on, by God, I want you to act like one."