Download or read book Saipan 1944 written by John Grehan and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronological account of the battle with more than 200 photographs, including graphic images of the fighting and the huge naval bombardment. After the astonishing Japanese successes of 1941 and early 1942, the Allies began to fight back. After victories at Guadalcanal, Coral Sea, Midway and other islands in the Pacific, by 1944, the Japanese had been pushed back onto the defensive. Yet there was no sign of an end to the war, as the Japanese mainland was beyond the reach of land-based heavy bombers. So, in the spring of 1944, the focus of attention turned to the Mariana Islands – Guam, Saipan and Tinian – which were close enough to Tokyo to place the Japanese capital within the operational range of the new Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The attack upon Saipan, the most heavily-defended of the Marianas, took the Japanese by surprise, but over the course of more than three weeks, the 29,000 Japanese defenders defied the might of 71,000 US Marines and infantry, supported by fifteen battleships and eleven cruisers. The storming of the beaches and the mountainous interior cost the US troops dearly, in what was the most-costly battle to date in the Pacific War. Eventually, after three weeks of savage fighting, which saw the Japanese who refused to surrender being burned to death in their caves, the enemy commander, Lieutenant General Saito, was left with just 3,000 able-bodied men and he ordered them to deliver a final suicide banzai charge. With the wounded limping behind, along with numbers of civilians, the Japanese overran two US battalions, before the 4,500 men were wiped out. It was the largest banzai attack of the Pacific War. As well as placing the Americans within striking distance of Tokyo, the capture of Saipan also opened the way for General MacArthur to mount his invasion of the Philippines and resulted in the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister Tojo. One Japanese admiral admitted that ‘Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan’. This is a highly illustrated story of what US General Holland Smith called ‘the decisive battle of the Pacific offensive’. It was, he added, the offensive that ‘opened the way to the Japanese home islands’.
Download or read book Oba the Last Samurai written by Don Jones and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 1944 the Americans took the island of Saipan, but Captain Sakae Oba of the Japanese Army refused to acknowledge defeat.
Download or read book D Day in the Pacific written by Harold J. Goldberg and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-02 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The narrative moves smoothly and crisply. There is effective treatment of strategy, preparations, and then the invasion and battle for Saipan itself.” —Spencer C. Tucker, author of American Revolution In June 1944 the attention of the nation was riveted on events unfolding in France. But in the Pacific, the Battle of Saipan was of extreme strategic importance. This is a gripping account of one of the most dramatic engagements of World War II. The conquest of Saipan and the neighboring island of Tinian was a turning point in the war in the Pacific as it made the American victory against Japan inevitable. Until this battle, the Japanese continued to believe that success in the war remained possible. While Japan had suffered serious setbacks as early as the Battle of Midway in 1942, Saipan was part of her inner defense line, so victory was essential. The American victory at Saipan forced Japan to begin considering the reality of defeat. For the Americans, the capture of Saipan meant secure air bases for the new B-29s that were now within striking distance of all Japanese cities, including Tokyo. “Harold Goldberg’s riveting story of this conflict brings the dead back to life by blending rigorous research with dramatic narratives by hundreds of survivors. He has written a superb account of a pivotal, little-known, and heart-breaking battle.” —Col. Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (ret.),author of Storm Landings “Using recent interviews he conducted with extant US veterans, [Goldberg] skillfully develops the soldiers’ view of the battle for Saipan in an engaging, clearly written and interesting volume.” —The Journal of Military History
Download or read book Battle for Saipan written by Daniel Wrinn and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Saipan Tinian 1944 written by Gordon L. Rottman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-20 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth examination of the United States' invasion of two Pacific islands, featuring a variety of illustrations throughout. The 1944 invasion of Saipan was the first two-division amphibious assault conducted by US forces in World War II. Saipan and Tinian had been under Japanese control since 1914 and, heavily colonized, they were considered virtually part of the Empire. The struggle for Saipan and Tinian was characterized by the same bitter fighting that typified the entire Central Pacific campaign. Fighting side-by-side, Army and Marine units witnessed the largest tank battle of the Pacific War, massed Japanese banzai charges, and the horror of hundreds of Japanese civilians committing suicide to avoid capture. In this book, Gordon Rottman details the capture of these vital islands that led to the collapse of Prime Minister Tojo's government.
Download or read book Breaching the Marianas The Battle for Saipan written by John C. Chapin and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Breaching the Marianas" by John C. Chapin is a book about the WWII campaigns and Marine Corps history. The book gives a detailed account of what happened on the Mariana Islands of Saipan during the war. Excerpt: "Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan by Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret) It was a brutal day. At first light on 15 June 1944, the Navy fire support ships of the task force lying off Saipan Island increased their previous days' preparatory fires involving all calibers of weapons. At 0542, Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner ordered, "Land the landing force." Around 0700, the landing ships, tank (LSTs) moved to within approximately 1,250 yards behind the line of departure. Troops in the LSTs began debarking from them in landing vehicles, tracked (LVTs). Control vessels containing Navy and Marine personnel with their radio gear took their positions displaying flags indicating which beach approaches they controlled."
Download or read book Saipan written by Bruce M. Petty and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was a turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan. In this work, the survivors--including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war--have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author offers an introduction to the volume and arranges the oral histories by location--Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam--in the first half, and by branch of service in the second half.
Download or read book Howlin Mad Vs the Army written by Harry A. Gailey and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Last Great Banzai written by Bradley Mason Gates and published by . This book was released on 2024-07-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On July 7, 1944, all remaining Japanese forces on Saipan conducted a massive suicide attack against the American forces that had landed on the island several weeks earlier. At approximately 3am, the Japanese forces rushed southward on the Tanapag Plain and overwhelmed the soldiers of the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers continued unimpeded for 1,200 yards, where they came upon the U.S. Marine artillerymen of the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division. Direct howitzer and machine gun fire slowed, but did not stop, the massive suicide attack. The howitzer batteries, as well as headquarters battery, were overrun, and the Marines banded together in small pockets with rifles and pistols in an effort to hold off the Japanese. Against formidable odds, the Marines withstood continued Japanese attacks for nearly twelve hours until soldiers from other units fought their way forward and finally stopped the charge. The scene of carnage on the Tanapag Plain the next day was indescribable. The Marines who survived the attack were in shock. Those who observed the aftermath of the battle could not believe it had happened, but it was one of the most dramatic days in military history.
Download or read book 40 Thieves on Saipan written by Joseph Tachovsky and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of The 2020 Best Book Award for Military History -- American Bookfest An elite platoon of Marine Scout-Snipers, Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky’s “40 Thieves” were chosen for their willingness to defy rules and beat all-comers. When two Marines got into a fight, the loser ended up in the infirmary, the winner in the brig. Tachovsky wanted the winner on his team—a brush with military law was a recommendation. These full-blooded men were trained in a ruthless array of hand-to-hand killing techniques and then thrown into the battle for Saipan—Emperor Hirohito’s “Treasure” and the bulwark of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific—where they would wreak havoc in and around, but mostly behind, enemy lines. They witnessed inhuman atrocities; walked into an ambush after the cunning Japanese used wounded Marines as bait; endured body-punishing extremes of heat, hunger, and thirst; fought a relentless enemy who would not surrender; and watched best friends die. Now Tachovsky’s son Joseph tells their remarkable story—a story he didn’t even know until after his father’s death—reported from an extensive documentary record, including priceless mementos his father kept, and from exhaustive interviews with survivors who served under Lieutenant “Ski.” This is how America won the war in the Pacific, where “uncommon valor was a common virtue.” 40 Thieves on Saipan: The Elite Marine Scout-Snipers in One of World War II’s Bloodiest Battles is true history. It’s also an adventure you don’t want to miss.
Download or read book Mass Suicides on Saipan and Tinian 1944 written by Alexander Astroth and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Americans invaded the Japanese-controlled islands of Saipan and Tinian in 1944, civilians and combatants committed mass suicide to avoid being captured. Though these mass suicides have been mentioned in documentary films, they have received scant scholarly attention. This book draws on United States National Archives documents and photographs, as well as veteran and survivor testimonies, to provide readers with a better understanding of what happened on the two islands and why. The author details the experiences of the people of the islands from prehistoric times to the present, with an emphasis on the Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Chamorro and Carolinian civilians during invasion and occupation.
Download or read book Operation Forager written by Daniel Wrinn and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A gripping account of one of the most daring--and disturbing--operations in the Pacific war. From the heavy fighting in Saipan to the securing of Tinian and Guam, the Pacific war left its profound mark in this sheltered corner of the world, which could be felt for several decades to come. Caught in the center of a vicious struggle between two superpowers, these islands would form an unconventional battleground for US forces and the Japanese Navy."--Page 4 of cover.
Download or read book Saipan written by James H. Hallas and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the Battle of Saipan has it all. Marines at war: on Pacific beaches, in hellish volcanic landscapes in places like Purple Heart Ridge, Death Valley, and Hell’s Pocket, under a commander known as “Howlin’ Mad.” Naval combat: carriers battling carriers from afar, fighters downing Japanese aircraft, submarines sinking carriers. Marine-army rivalry. Fanatical Japanese defense and resistance. A turning point of the Pacific War. James Hallas reconstructs the full panorama of Saipan in a way that no recent chronicler of the battle has done. In its comprehensiveness, attention to detail, scope of research, and ultimate focus on the men who fought and won the battle on the beaches and at and above the sea, it rivals Richard Frank’s modern classic Guadalcanal. This is the definitive military history of the Battle of Saipan.
Download or read book Hell Is Upon Us written by Victor Brooks and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 14, 1944, little more than a week after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, another mighty fleet steamed towards its own D-Day landing. The target of this mighty U.S. armada was the Marianas Island group, which included Saipan, home to an important Japanese base, and Guam, the first American territory captured in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. When the brutal fighting ended eight weeks later, 60,000 Japanese ground troops and most of the carrier air power of the Japanese Imperial Navy were annihilated. Hell Is Upon Us skillfully describes the entire Marianas campaign-World War II's most ambitious combined service operation and the largest carrier battle in history-and provides riveting first-hand accounts of the soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen who fought through the hell of Japan's Pacific defense.
Download or read book Their Backs Against the Sea written by Bill Sloan and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the midst of the largest banzai attack of the war, US Army Lt. Col. William O'Brien, grievously wounded and out of ammunition, grabbed a sabre from a fallen Japanese soldier and flailed away at a small army of assailants, screaming to his men, "Don't give them a damn inch!" When his body was recovered the next day, thirty dead enemies were piled around him. The Battle of Saipan lasted twenty-five hellish days in the summer of 1944, and the stakes couldn't have been higher. If Japan lost possession of the island, all hope for victory would be lost. For the Americans, its capture would result in secure air bases for the new B-29s that would put them within striking distance of the Japanese homeland. The outcome of the war in the Pacific lay in the balance. In this gritty, vivid narrative, award-winning author Bill Sloan fuses fresh interviews, oral and unit histories, and unpublished accounts to describe one of the war's bloodiest and most overlooked battles of the Pacific theater. Combining grunt's-view grit with big picture panorama (and one of the ugliest inter-service controversies of the war), Their Backs against the Sea is the definitive dramatic story of this epic battle -- and an inspiring chronicle of some of the greatest acts of valor in American military history.
Download or read book Saipan written by Bruce M. Petty and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was a turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan. In this work, the survivors--including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war--have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author offers an introduction to the volume and arranges the oral histories by location--Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam--in the first half, and by branch of service in the second half.
Download or read book Bloody Saipan June 1944 written by Gary Schreckengost and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-03-25 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle for Saipan and the Marianas Island chain in the Central Pacific was one of the toughest battles of World War II. Assaulted by three American divisions-two Marine and one Army-and supported one of the largest naval armadas ever assembled, Saipan was a strategic victory for the United States. Once it was secured by late-July 1944, massive new B-29 bombers were able to attack Japan from the island chain. This is the historically accurate but fictional story of one of the Marines who hit Red Beach in June 1944: Lance Corporal Henry Hennessey, a high school hockey player from Syracuse, New York. Read how and why Henry joined, what his training was like on Hawaii, who his buddies were in A Team, 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon, Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, and what combat was like on Saipan, 1944.