Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [182]
The long-awaited opportunity came in June, when the Americans leaped another thousand miles, from Eniwetok to the Marianas. Admiral Spruance’s 5th Fleet concentrated against the two islands of Saipan and Tinian; while they did so, Task Force 58 ranged ahead of them, pounding bases as far as the Palaus to the southwest, and Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima to the north, in the Bonin group. Cut off on all sides from air and sea reinforcement, the Japanese garrison of Saipan prepared to die for the Emperor as their predecessors had done.
Two U. S. Marine divisions landed on Saipan on June 15. In spite of a heavy bombardment they met staunch resistance from the Japanese, who included both soldiers of the regular garrison, plus about 6,000 sailors from the Imperial Fleet, commanded by Admiral Nagumo, who had led the Pearl Harbor striking force. The Marines made heavy going; they were reinforced by an army infantry division which made even slower going. The army and Marine commanders fell to squabbling over essentially doctrinal differences—the army believed in a cautious, methodical-approach; the Marines, imbued with the vulnerability of the offshore fleet behind them, had been taught to take ground in a hurry and never mind the casualties—and Marine General Holland Smith ended up relieving the army divisional commander. It was not until July 9 that resistance finally ended, with the standard suicide charge by the surviving Japanese. More than 3,000 Americans were killed and more than 13,000 wounded. The Japanese losses were as usual much heavier. Of perhaps 30,000 people on the island—soldiers, sailors, and Japanese civilians—about 27,000 died, including thousands of civilians who committed suicide along with the last soldiers; the commanding general and Admiral Nagumo both committed ritual suicide as well. Napoleon once remarked that a victory was no victory without prisoners—but he never fought the Japanese.
So fierce was the fight for Saipan that Spruance delayed his assault on nearby Tinian, and also on Guam. Meanwhile, the enormous fleet off Saipan, more than 500 vessels, provided the ideal target for the Japanese. Admiral Koga had been killed in an air crash, and to his successor as commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, it appeared as if the time had come at last to give battle. His fleet was now based at Tawitawi in the Sulu Islands, just north of Borneo. He had expected to hit the American ships supporting MacArthur, but Mitscher’s attacks on the Palaus led him into the central Pacific instead.
Toyoda skimmed the cream off the Combined Fleet to make a Mobile Fleet, the best Japan had, under Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa. Ozawa mustered nine aircraft carriers, five battleships, thirteen cruisers, twenty-eight destroyers, and a total of 473 aircraft. His planes had longer range than the Americans’, though they achieved it by lacking such refinements as armor plating for the cockpits or self-sealing gasoline tanks. He also expected to be supported by the remaining land-based aircraft from the Marianas. Dividing their fleet into five groups built around the carriers, the Imperial Japanese Navy sallied forth to annihilate the enemy.
The Americans were split into several groups, busily pounding Saipan and the assorted islands which might otherwise have provided support. Task Force 58 itself was split in two, with Mitscher and Spruance together west of Saipan, and the other half of it off bombarding Iwo Jima, several hundred miles away. Yet the Americans knew precisely what they were doing. Submarines had watched the Japanese in Tawitawi—indeed, had made such a nuisance of themselves that the Japanese had not dared put to sea for training of their new carrier