THE BATTLES FOR THE ISLANDS

THE GILBERTS, MARSHALLS AND PHILIPPINE SEA

By September 1943, the Japanese were under severe pressure - indeed, it can be argued that they were already beaten. Although Tojo, Japan's warlike and dictatorial Premier, was talking of and planning for the great offensive that would win the Pacific war for Japan, the High Command knew that they were in trouble. Shipping losses to US submarines were mounting because of inadequate convoys and worse convoy protection. Vital raw materials and supplies were going down with the ships. Terrible losses of pilots were being met only by cutting the training programmes of the pilots that replaced them, which inevitably produced still higher losses of both aircraft and crews. New aircraft types were just not materialising, with the result that Allied aircraft design and technology had overtaken the once all-conquering speed and firepower of the Zero fighter and Mitsubishi bomber. Perhaps most important, the USA was building and putting into action not only faster and better aircraft carriers, but also faster and more manoeuvrable longer-range and better-armed aircraft to fly from them.

To face this threat, the Japanese established in September 1943 a "New Operational Policy" by which the Japanese garrisons holding a defensive line from Timor through western New Guinea, Biak Island, the Caroline Islands and the Marianas were to be immoveable. To them fell the honour of fighting to the death. To the US Marines fell most of the task of providing that glorious end. The first target was, after some initial debate between Admiral Nimitz on the one hand, and Admiral King and General Marshall on the other, settled as the Gilbert Islands, sixteen tiny atolls in the Central Pacific lying astride the Equator. In particular, the tiny yet colossally defended Tarawa Atoll was singled out as the most important target, because of its potential as a Japanese base to combat the necessary US conquest of the Marshall Islands.

The US attack on Tarawa Atoll, and most notably on the fortress-like two-mile by 900 yard island of Betio, was launched on November 20th 1943, and was to prove disastrous for the force that undertook it, yet entirely successful in its objectives. Over 4,500 Japanese were on the little island; virtually every palm tree, every fold in the beach concealed an arsenal. In sand-covered concrete bunkers, the defenders survived a barrage of 3,000 tons of shells from three battleships, nine destroyers and four cruisers of the US Navy plus bombing from the air, an assault which set virtually the entire island afire. When the first of 16,798 Marines attempted to land, they were met by a hail of fire such as few had ever imagined. Tricky tides, about which the invasion force had been warned, caused the landing craft to run aground on the reef, well short of the beach, and as the Marines waded ashore they were gunned down by the hundred. Despite calling up his reserve forces on the afternoon of the first day, Major-General Julian C. Smith finished his first day ashore less than 200 yards from the waterline.

Over the next two days, every inch of the tiny island had to be fought for with flame throwers, grenades and small arms against an opponent who was determined to die. And die he did. By the end of the battle on Betio Island, 5,500 men had met their end, including more than a thousand US Marines. Over 2,000 Marines were wounded. Of the Japanese, all were slain except for one officer, 16 other ranks and a party of Korean labourers.

Nobody, least of all Admiral Nimitz, had expected such murderous resistance from such a small and apparently insignificant target. The appalling US death toll on Tarawa served as a warning for future invasions in the island-hopping campaign that was to lead ultimately to Tokyo, and the complete rethink of the pre-invasion barrage technique that resulted from it undoubtedly saved many lives in subsequent operations.

Elsewhere in the Gilbert Islands, the pattern was variable and less dramatic. To take the Makin Atoll to the North-West of Tarawa, Major-General Ralph C. Smith's 27th Division lost 64 men killed and 150 wounded, a considerably higher death toll than he had been led to expect, whereas the Abemama Atoll was taken with no problem at all by just a company of US Marines. The next target was the Marshall Islands, a bigger problem altogether, and one for which the US 5th Fleet was greatly reinforced. Newly-commanded by Rear-Admiral Mitscher, the fleet's Task Force 58 embarked upon the Marshalls operation with no less than 12 aircraft carriers, bearing 715 fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers. Rear-Admiral Turner's amphibious force was made up of 300 warships and transport ships.

Against all advice, Admiral Nimitz decided to make the obvious principal target of Kwajalein the main objective for an amphibious landing. The other two targets that were to be overcome, Maloelap and Wotje, were presented as objectives to Task Force 58. The Japanese, correctly anticipating that Nimitz would be advised, after Tarawa, to land on the easier targets first, cunningly diverted a significant part of their defence force away from Kwajalein to the other islands - and thereby contributed unwittingly to the success of Nimitz' bold stroke. With the lessons of Tarawa ever in mind, the air offensive against Kwajalein, Maloelap and Wotje, launched between the end of January 1944 and February 11th, was heavy and unrelenting. Over 6,000 missions were flown and more than 1,100 tons of bombs were dropped. In the midst of the holocaust the US 5th Amphibious Force, including the newly arrived 4th Marine Division, which had never been in action before, went ashore on Kwajalein in force and without major losses. Some 42,000 men landed, and this time only 372 were killed. The Japanese lost almost 8,000 men - but, to a man, they preferred death to surrender.

On February 17th came the next assault, against Eniwetok, which was again successful with relatively small losses. Once again the Japanese defenders preferred death - of 2,741 on the island, 2,677 were killed. Viewing the success of the operations in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Nimitz decided once again, as he had before in the Solomon Islands, not to bother with invading targets that, although held by the Japanese, were tactically unimportant once they were isolated from their brethren. The proposed assaults on Wotje and Maloelap, and the possible invasions of other small Japanese held groups, were cancelled. The Japanese that held them were left to consider their positions until the war was over. Similarly, the great Japanese naval base at Truk in the Caroline Islands was attacked fiercely and successfully from the air from February 17th to 20th with the loss of 33 ships and 250 Japanese aircraft - and was then left to its own devices for the remainder of the war. Interestingly, the sunken ships in Truk lagoon have, since the war, become a major site for marine biological research. Before the attack on the Japanese fleet, the sandy floor of the lagoon had supported little marine life, and biologists are able to measure exactly the development of marine life in a controlled environment with a known timescale.

However, marine biological research was far in the future as Nimitz and MacArthur, the latter having fought his way almost to the tip of New Guinea, looked to their next target - the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Philippine Sea, and ultimately the reconquest of the Philippines. Not for nothing had Douglas MacArthur vowed that he would return.

The Philippine Sea

A rapid and successful island-hopping exercise carried out by MacArthur's troops up the coast of New Guinea between May and July 1944 gave the Allies the islands of Wakde, Biak, and Numfoor and positioned MacArthur's troops by the end of July in the region of the "Vogelkop" at the tip of New Guinea. Landings in April 1944 by the US 24th Division (Tanahmerah Bay) and the 41st Division (Hollandia and Aitape) to take General Adachi and the Japanese 18th Army by surprise were successful and, although the Japanese counterattacked and fought fiercely through July, by the end of the month the pincer movement of the two American forces had over 120,000 Japanese neatly trapped in appalling tropical conditions.

Meanwhile, the plan to take the islands of Guam, Saipan and Tinian, which were to become the air bases from which the assault on the Philippines and, eventually, the nuclear attacks on mainland Japan were launched, had been put into action on June 11th when the first of a long series of devastating bombing raids took off for the Marianas. Vice-Admiral Ozawa of the Japanese Navy, as soon as the bombing began, was ordered to take his 1st Mobile Fleet into the attack, since simply to await developments, now that the US Navy had twice the carrier-borne air power of the Japanese, was certain to result ultimately in US recapture of the Philippines. The Japanese High Command believed by this time that they had little to lose by attempting the near-impossible, and on June 15th Ozawa's fleet came throught the San Bernadino Strait and into the Philippine Sea, there linking up with Ugaki's Attack Division. On the same day, the 2nd and 4th US Marine Divisions landed on Saipan against ferocious defence by 32,000 Japanese soldiers, and by evening V Amphibious Corps had 20,000 Americans on Saipan.

As Ozawa's fleet approached to do battle, Admiral Spruance recalled his carriers and their aircraft, redeployed his fleet, and awaited events. He could not sail out to meet the enemy in the classic manner, for to do so would have exposed the Marines on Saipan to attack. So he just waited. He did not have to wait for long, and was, in any event, well briefed by US Intelligence, who continued to be able to decode and read in full Japanese Navy signals.

On June 19th two Japanese naval forces approached. The first was a decoy fleet under Vice-Admiral Kurita, whose role was to attract Admiral Spruance's aircraft into battle. This was followed at a respectful distance of over 100 miles by a much larger force that was intended to pick off the American aircraft carriers while their aircraft were away attacking Kurita's ships.

On the face of it, this was an excellent plan. It failed because of the massive superiority of US aircraft, crews and training. The Japanese lost 243 aircraft in the operation, two thirds of those that took part, and achieved almost nothing - minor damage to American ships, and 30 US aircraft shot down. The Japanese ships fared little better. Admiral Ozawa's flagship, the 29,300 ton aircraft carrier Taiho , was torpedoed and sunk during the morning, and a few hours later, in the afternoon, the 25,675 ton carrier Shokaku , completed only in 1941, met the same fate. Vice-Admiral Lockwood's submarines had had a good day.

Ozawa had survived the loss of his ship, and was now commanding his fleet from Haguro , a 13,400 ton heavy cruiser. During the late afternoon of 20th June, another battle took place in fading light, some 200 miles from the first. Amid fierce aerial combat, the Japanese lost another carrier, the 24,000 ton Hiyo , and a further 40 aircraft. The American fleet lost a total of 49 planes, more than half of which crashed while trying to land on the carriers after dark - albeit with the benefit of full landing lights that Spruance had had switched on despite the submarine risk. This decision saved many lives and enabled the rescue crews to find ditched pilots in the water around the carriers.

Following this second Battle of the Philippine Sea, Ozawa had only 35 aircraft left of the 473 with which he embarked upon his attack. The battles marked the end of effective Japanese carrier-borne operations, and also the end of Tojo's reign of terror at the head of Japan's government. Desperately seeking someone to blame for the disaster, governmental opinion in Japan rounded upon Tojo, who resigned. He was succeeded by General Kuniaki Koiso.

Meanwhile, on Saipan the 27th Infantry Division and the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions had been fighting a gruelling campaign across rocky and mountainous terrain in which small pockets of Japanese soldiers were able to dig themselves in using caves and rocky defiles for cover. As each unit of Japanese infantry was pinned down and surrounded, its remaining soldiers would suddenly launch a last desperate suicidal Banzai attack, taking with them as many of the US troops as they could. Despite this wearying and grisly way of taking an island inch by inch, the Marines made progress, and by July 1st the battle was entering its final stage. Almost a week later, on the 7th, the last 2,500 or so Japanese defenders swept down upon the Americans in a final suicide attack and were annihilated. Admiral Nagumo shot himself, and General Saito, rather more colourfully, ceremonially slit his own stomach with his sword, then had his adjutant shoot him in the head. Who shot the adjutant is not clear.

Guam

While the Japanese Navy had been losing its aircraft in the Philippine Sea and the US 2nd and 4th Marines plus the 27th Infantry Division had been clearing Saipan, the 3rd Amphibious Corps (the same troops that had taken Bougainville, but under a different organisational title) had embarked upon the recapture of the 28 mile long narrow island of Guam. This important base for future operations was held by 18,500 Japanese army and navy personnel, a large proportion of whom were clustered around the airfield at Orote, close to the main town of Agana. With the massacre of Tarawa still fresh in their minds, and rather more experience of Japanese techniques of war since, the US commanders took no risks. The bombardment of Guam that preceded the landing began on July 2nd, almost three weeks before the actual invasion on July 21st.

The landing, close to and south of Agana, went well, and the US forces advanced rapidly, despite fierce fighting, towards the airfield and the high ground beyond. Then, on 25th July, the Japanese counterattacked, and there was a night of ferocious battle during which the Japanese troops all but overwhelmed the USheadquarters on the island, taking as they did so quite appalling losses. By morning their losses were such that they could do nothing but fall back, and the battle for Guam was almost over. Yet it was not until August 10th that General Obata and his troops had been pushed to the sea, and not until the 11th that he too killed himself as the battle finally came to an end.

The battle for Guam cost the Japanese 17,300 dead at the time, and quite a few later as Japanese soldiers surfaced from hideouts determined to have their own last stand, some of them months after the battle was over. The Americans lost just under 2,000 soldiers on the island.

Tinian

The last of Nimitz's three Mariana targets was Tinian, a smaller island only 12 miles long but, unlike the others, almost entirely flat and capable of providing an easily constructed airfield for operation of the new Boeing B29 Superfortress long range bomber. Less than three miles from Saipan, it was, as soon as Saipan had been invaded, within gunnery range of land batteries. On July 24th 1944, the 24th and 25th Marines went ashore across narrow beaches after heavy gunfire both from the sea and from Saipan had reduced the level of resistance, and managed to establish a sound beach-head by nightfall. The battle lasted for a little over a week, and followed a similar pattern to that of the other islands - stubborn resistance by small groups of Japanese, followed by Banzai attacks when it was clear that Japanese arms could not prevail.

By July 31st, the Marines had taken Tinian town, the principal objective on the island. On August 1st the last militarily organised Japanese action ended, but once again it took until August 12th to round up all the remaining soldiers and hostile civilians. A further 6,000 Japanese soldiers died on Tinian. Only 235 prisoners were taken. A total of 290 US Marines died in the assault.

Thus ended the conquest of the Marianas, a necessary prelude to the reconquest of the Philippines. All told, the Japanese deathroll amounted to about 40,000 men, with just over 2,000 Japanese taken prisoner. The Americans lost 4,596 dead, with 19,323 wounded or missing.