Inferno - Max Hastings [357]
By 1944, the United States was producing so many ships and planes that it felt able to commit large forces to the Pacific. Fulfilment of the doctrine of Germany First had always been compromised by the fact that American popular sentiment was much more strongly roused against the Japanese than against the Germans, and by the U.S. Navy’s determination to be seen to win the war in the east. While Russia’s struggle still hung in the balance, this had been risky. But now it was plain that Stalin’s armies were triumphant, the Wehrmacht in eclipse. Eisenhower’s forces in Europe were relatively large, but nothing like as numerous as would have been necessary had they confronted Hitler’s legions alone. Although lavishly provided with tanks, guns, vehicles and aircraft, the Anglo-American armies were always short of infantry. Moreover, the Pacific campaigns imposed an enormous drain on Allied global shipping resources, out of all proportion to the relatively small combat forces deployed, because of the distances involved.
Service in the Pacific was an experience light-years from that of Europe, first because of its geographical isolation. The U.S. Marine pilot Samuel Hynes wrote: “Out here the war life was all there was; no history was visible, no monuments of the past, no cities remembered from books. There was nothing here to remind a soldier of his other life; no towns, no bars, nowhere to go, nowhere even to desert to.” Men obliged to exist for months under open skies in tropical conditions suffered relentlessly from disease and skin disorders, even before enemy action took a bloodier toll. A marine, Frazer West, described a characteristic problem on Bougainville: “It wasn’t dysentery … It was bad rain diarrhea—bad water … you can develop diarrhea real quick … Undoubtedly stress played a real part. We didn’t even know the meaning of the word stress then, but now we do.”
Amphibious operations became a Pacific routine, albeit a hazardous and challenging one. An American soldier wrote: “Even under the best conditions, the unloading phase of a landing operation is a hot, rugged chore. With a high surf pounding against a narrow strip of jungle undergrowth, with a set deadline of daylight hours, and under the scorching heat of a South Sea November sun, the job was an exhausting nightmare. Working parties were punching with every last ounce of blood to get ammunition, oil, supplies, vehicles, rations and water out of the boats and above the high-water line. Shore party commanders were frantically trying to find a few square feet of dump space and discovering nothing but swamp all along the beach. Seabees and engineers were racking their brains and bodies in a desperate effort to construct any kind of road to high ground where vehicles could be parked, oil stored and ammunition stacked. But there wasn’t any high ground for thousands of yards—only a few scattered small islands of semi-inundated land surrounded by a stinking, sticky mire. And hour after hour boats roared in to the beach jammed with supplies.”
The most important Pacific operation of 1944 was the seizure of the Marianas, key to the inner ring of Japan’s defences. When the U.S. Marine Corps began its assaults on Saipan, Tinian and Guam, the Japanese Combined Fleet sailed to meet the invaders, precipitating the largest carrier encounter of the war. “The fate of the Empire rests on this one battle,” declared Adm. Soemu Toyoda on 13 June, as his ships, commanded by Adm. Jizaburo Ozawa, sailed against Spruance. But Ultra had once more revealed his plan to the