 Following Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had swept far into the Pacific, occupying islands as far south as New Guinea. That was 1942. Thereafter, we recaptured them one by one, until our next conquest would bring us within striking distance of the Philippines and Japan itself. Less than 1,600 miles from Tokyo lie the Marianas. 15 volcanic islands, including Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan. Saipan, the Marianas Administrative Center, was our first objective, to be invaded June 15, 1944. On the 22nd of February, carrier planes of Task Force 58 took off for the softening up attacks on Saipan's defenses, as well as those of Tinian, Rota, and Guam. Our first wave of planes caught the Japs off guard. It got 70 of their aircraft on the ground. Sporadic attempts of Japanese planes to attack the carriers and warships of Task Force 58 ended in failure, because we were ready for them. We destroyed no less than 141 planes, their entire attacking force. The plane after plane was shot down and set ablaze, until these costly adventures of the Japanese Air Force completely collapsed. Toward the end of May, the 27th Infantry Division in Hawaii was getting ready to sail for Saipan. Major General Smith was in command. Veterans of the Gilbert Islands' campaign, the men of the 27th knew the enemy. Some of their buddies had not returned from the Gilberts. Some would never return from Saipan. Elsewhere in the Pacific, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions embarked. They were to make the first landings on the island. By now, convoys were nearing Saipan. In two more days, these men would be crawling through brush and cane fields, fighting for every foot of Japanese ground. They received their final instructions in Japanese symbols, nomenclatures, and the island's geography. Saipan was the Japs' nerve center. Its capital and largest city was Garapan, the 2nd biggest city, Charon Kanoa. Airfields were at Asleto and Charon Kanoa, and a partially completed airstrip at Marpe Point. The population was estimated at 50,000. 25,000 civilian, 25,000 military. Our naval barrage blasted away at all Jap installations. On the success of this barrage depended the fate of our Marine Divisions. No air attacks along the shoreline were coordinated with this naval shelling. The invasion was on. D-Day 0700 hours. Troops of the 2nd and 4th Marine Division piled in Higgins boats and then alligators. Awaiting the starting signal, assault boats circled around the transports. Landings were to be made along a line from Charon Kanoa to Aginyan Point by the 2nd and 4th Marines, moving in abreast. Under our naval barrage, the boats started for Saipan Shores at 0815 hours. Soon we would know how effective had been the pre-invasion bombardment and how much strength there was left on the island. Once on land, however, we were pinned down for a couple of hours. Silenced enough of the enemy fire for more of our troops to land. And by noon we had pushed a mile inland in certain parts of the beachhead. Toward evening we were fighting our way further inland. And on the following day the 2nd Marine Division extended its beachhead and joined forces with the 4th Marines near Charon Kanoa. We were still being showered on the beaches with jack mortars and shells as we attempted to push our way further inland. These were our next objectives as Lito, Saipan's main airfield, Magician Bay on the east coast, and Garapan the capital. On the 2nd day of the invasion, the 27th Infantry Division began landing over the blue beaches at Charon Kanoa. Ended with little opposition, the 27th set up a command post and established contact with the Marines to coordinate an attack on Aslito. Our infantry tank teams sweeping toward the airfield were supported by mortar and artillery fire. Here in the eastern sector, resistance was stiffest because the Japs had already withdrawn many troops from the south. After a day of hard fighting across the dangerous exposed ground, the Army troops captured Aslito airfield on D-Day plus 3. The hangars and planes were largely in ruins. Those that were halfway intact were shipped back to the states for study. Army engineers lost no time in reconstructing the runways. Thousands of natives and their children caught in the advance of our troops streamed through designated safety zones to the internment camps. Here, together with captured Japs soldiers, they were treated as prisoners of war and were given food, clothing, and medical treatment. A large Japanese task force had meanwhile sailed toward Saipan. The 5th fleet operating in support of our landings under Admiral Spruance was the Japs target. Our search planes could not locate the enemy force. The Japs struck first. Attack 300 miles west of Saipan, the day of Aslito's capture. Many were shot down by our own carrier planes and anti-aircraft batteries. This battle could not have occurred in any previous war. It was a naval battle without naval guns, in which, with aircraft alone, two huge fleets were striking at each other at a distance of 300 miles. After naval engagement since midway, we shot down 353 Japs planes. Only three of our ships were damaged, and those superficially. Now it was our turn. We searched for the Japanese fleet throughout the day and night, and finally found it the following afternoon, about 670 miles west of Saipan. Our airstrike was immediately ordered by Admiral Mitchell, commander of our carriers. It was just before dusk. By the time we reached the fleet, it had already shifted its position. Escape was now the enemy's only hope. After yesterday's battle, he just didn't have enough planes. We saw a few in the air, none on the decks. We sank three JAP carriers and 15 other warships, and as our planes returned from their mission, the Japanese fleet totally crippled, retired toward the Philippines. Our troops on Saipan, having secured Aslito airfield, drove eastward toward Magician Bay, and isolated a large part of the Japanese troops on the southern tip of the island at Nafutan Point. From there, the 27th Division moved into reserve. Meanwhile, the 2nd and 4th Marines went up the center of the island toward Mount Tapacho, which dominates Garapan and its harbor. Mile by mile, we were taking possession of Saipan, called the Island of Many Thieves, by the discoverer of the Marianas. Resistance grew increasingly severe as our forces entered the higher country. Tank teams smashed JAP pillboxes in the foothills before the mountains, preparing the way for the infantry. 1,500 feet high, Mount Tapacho was an excellent vantage point for the JAPs. We had to protect our troops with smoke screens of white phosphorus, and then advanced toward the deep wooded slopes, which would present yet another major obstacle. To flush out the JAPs, we set fire to the surrounding cane fields. We progressed steadily. Once our forces gained the mountain, they would be able to control the capital. This last stretch was one of the hardest. Along the mountain side, JAPs were hidden in limestone caves, from which they had to be blasted with dynamite and flamethrowers. We reached the mountain summit on June 25th, D-Day, plus 10. We're in the position to drive for Garapan. Our artillery fired at the capital. For the first time in this war, American troops were assaulting a true Japanese settlement. It was hit with every weapon at our disposal, supplemented the artillery barrage. Rockets from mobile launchers sought out every possible enemy dugout. Thunderbolts from the Osledo airfield joined in the attack, and Navy dive bombers blasted the JAP batteries and defenses. The troops were forging ahead. This was still the day we had gained Mount Tapacho and set up our artillery observation posts on its peak. In a few more hours, we would hold a continuous line from coast to coast across the island. In 10 days of bitter fighting, our forces had occupied approximately half of Saipan, including the principal airfield, a town, and a high peak in its center. Many JAPs had been killed, though only a handful were captured. Now on the 14th day, the troops were entering the outskirts of the capital. This was Garapan, once a clean, tidy, tropical town that our bombardments had now reduced to a pile of rubble. But behind these shattered buildings were many enemy patrols, and we had to fight for the city street by street and house by house. After four days of this struggle, on the 2nd of July, Garapan fell, and so had its harbor, Tanapag, and the Flores Point seaplane base. Our casualties were heavy. Fanatical JAPs did not give up easily. In the whole campaign, more than 11,000 of our men were wounded. Some of these men were now on their way back to the States. There were others, of course, who would never return. The Marine and Army troops continued the drive northward, pocketing the last of the JAPs at Marpe airfield in Agasa Point and Paradise Valley, a deep gulch in the hills northeast of Garapan. The enemy still resisted violently. The terrain was tough. It became more and more difficult to move equipment. Then, on July 7th, 5,000 JAPs tried a last suicide counterattack, the largest ever launched in the Pacific. It was a costly one for both sides. American dead and wounded, 1,154 of 1,500. JAP dead, 4,311 of 5,000. We gave what remained of the enemy a chance to surrender. Through loudspeakers, we announced the ultimatum and held our fire. At first, no one came, then a few natives and Japanese civilians, but hardly any soldiers. When the time limit was up, we resumed our fire. The battle went on against the remaining Japanese, most of whom were holed up in well-nigh inaccessible caves. They didn't have a chance now, but they knew that this island was the gateway, not only to Japan, but to the Philippines and all Japanese-held territory in the Western Pacific. Through a final bombardment, the infantry and tank teams moved in, and by July 9th, three weeks and three days after D-Day, the Marines and Army troops had stopped all organized resistance. General Richardson and Major General Greiner inspected the fallen city of Garapan on the 13th of July. The last remaining JAPs were burned out of their cave hideouts. Here and there, we found them stranded on cliffs and had to pick them off one by one. Some JAPs surrendered, but most preferred death. Even suicide. Some tried to escape by swimming, though few got away, and so strong was their indoctrination horror of the Americans that fervent Japanese parents forced their children to swim out into the ocean. Our men rescued some of these children, and together with natives and captured soldiers took them to internment camps and prisoner of war enclosures. Food stores in mountain caves had not always held up. Many of these people had been without water for several days. The half-starved civilians were given army rations as well as rice which had fallen into our hands earlier in the campaign. Those who were too young or too feeble to walk were sent to central internment camps elsewhere on the island. Japanese prisoners, the few who'd surrendered, were put to work burying those who hadn't. Japanese losses were tremendous. 25,000 soldiers and civilians were dead. 1,500 more soldiers were hunted down and killed in the following weeks. The last defenders' only weapons had been bayonets mounted on sticks, and the sacrifice had gained them nothing. Our own losses came to one-sixth of the enemies. We now had everything to gain. Ever since Asleto's capture, army engineers and CPs had been at work on the new airfield. Perhaps it was a routine job for the engineers, but when the last piece of gravel was smoothed out by their bulldozers, the war in the Pacific entered a new and decisive phase. So far, every island we had recaptured, every swamp and malaria-infested spot from Guadalcanal to Quajolain had been a springboard for the next island, but not Saipan. When, on November 24, 1944, the first super fortresses took off from this center of the Marianas, they could at last head directly for the heart of the empire, whose savage grip had reached so far into the Pacific. Saipan was our air springboard for Tokyo. This island had given our Pacific fliers the first chance to strike at the Japanese home. From that time on, with hundreds of our giant bombers, we began the final destruction of a war machine that had once hoped to wipe out our civilization.