Saipan & Tinian 1944: Piercing the Japanese Empire

Osprey Campaign #137

by Gordon L. Rottman, Howard Gerrard (Illustrator)

The 1944 invasion of Saipan was the first two-division amphibious assault conducted by US forces in World War II (1939-1945). 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.

Genres: History, World War II, American History, Military History, Military Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Gordon L Rottman served for 26 years in the US Army in Special Forces, airborne infantry, long-range reconnaissance patrol, and military intelligence assignments in the Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve. He has worked as a Special Operations Forces scenario writer for 14 years at the Army' s Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk , Louisiana where he developed training exercises for Special Forces.
Gordon began writing military history books in 1984 and is currently a full-time author. He has written 50 books for Osprey.He is married with four children and lives in Cypress, Texas.

Reviews

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largest tank battle of the PTO and largest banzai charge of the PTO but somehow a pretty dry read. Art was decent.

[Dimitri · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title captures the strategic value of Saipan perfectly: a model colony since 1914, it was seen as part of Japan proper, not just another disposable name lost to the shrinkage of the defensive perimeter.
Too bad it's another Action Report-style text, even if the bibliography lists a few books which aren't the Official History type and thus must contain eyewitness accounts to spice things up.
That biggest tank attack of the Pacific ? 35 tin cans chewed up like nothing. In less than ten lines of text. The lure of the blurp.

[Sean Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty dry account with some odd factual errors too. Maps are great but images less so.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another in the series of books from Osprey and, like the other books, is rich in information, maps, paintings and photographs. As usual, I will point out some of the things I found most interesting in the book.


The Japanese name for the Mariana Islands is Mariana Shoto.


The name for the American attack on the Mrianas is Operation Forager.


In the attack on Saipan, the south part of the island was to be taken first.


There was no unified Japanese command in the Central Pacific. There was no joint planning between the Japanese Army and Navy. There was a lack of building materials, and reinforcements tended to only partially arrive, many being lost to US submarine attacks.


Tinian is only three miles away from Saipan, but the Japanese had no plan for any kind of joint operation between the two islands.

There were almost twice as many Japanese on Saipan as the US had figured. Only about half of them had weapons, though.


From June 11 to 13, preparatory aerial and naval bombardment of the islands began by the US. Several Japanese convoys tried to flee the Marianas but were attacked, with the results of 12 cargo ships sunk, several escort vessels, and numerous fishing boats.

The fighting was quite fierce on the islands.

The Japanese planned to oppose the invasion with a force of nine carriers, 473 planes, 5 battleships, 13 cruisers, 28 destroyers, 24 subs and seven oilers. This led to the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The end result of all the action was two US ships damaged and 130 planes lost, mostly due to non-combat causes. The Japanese lost three carriers, 476 planes, 445 pilots (only a very few were rescued, apparently), and suffered damage to other ships of their fleet. This was called “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”


There was one of the suicide charges on Saipan, and a mass suicide of Japanese civilians, including women and children.

The battle for Tinian was also vicious, but fewer civilians chose suicide, although many were killed by Japanese soldiers.


Around 29,500 Japanese out of 31,629 on Saipan were killed. Some 22,000 Japanese, Okinawan and Korean civilians committed suicide or were killed by Japanese or American fire.

On Tinian, only 252 prisoners were taken out of 8,039 Japanese starting the fight.