On this day in 1944,
US Marines were in the fourth day of their campaign to capture the Japanese stronghold on Saipan.
Saipan was close to the Japanese mainland.
Capturing its large airfield would put America’s B-29 bombers within range of Tokyo.
Saipan was home to thousands of Japanese civilians.
Most were sugar cane farmers, and many would fight to the death alongside their army.
The fight on Saipan was wrenching, with banzai assaults, close-in combat and suicides by the Japanese rather than surrenders.
Below, a letter from a Marine on Saipan to a family friend back home:
“Not having written to you for some time I thought it best I check in and spill the latest.
“As you probably know the last area I was in was the Hawaiian Islands…
“After we left Hawaii we toured the Pacific for awhile and finally hit Saipan Island in the Marianas.
“My God, Doc, I once thought there could never be anything as bad as Tarawa was – that was before I’d seen Saipan.
“In many [engagements] we had the nips stacked up like cord wood.
“One of our guns accounted for 120 Japs during one of their mad Banzai night charges.
“One of the platoons in our company scorched out ten tanks during another...previous night counterattack.
“Some of the nips’ chow is quite tolerable – they had food dumps for numerous locations on this island.
“We had menus such as – curried rice and chicken, papaya and saki; crabmeat cocktail, bamboo sprouts, tinned candied carrots and red salmon; canned pineapple, fish…, fresh...mangos, baked breadfruit and a variety of other foods – all very tasty and an immense rebuff from the “C” rations issued during the campaign.
“Well, Doc, best I… get off the firing line so until later.
“Yours truly,
“Guy Boothby”
Saipan would fall to the Americans by early July 1944 at a cost of five thousand dead and twenty-one thousand wounded.
…Another payment of the cost of defeating fascist aggression.
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I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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