Last Hurrah

It is hard today to imagine the horror that faced American soldiers and Marines 60 years ago as their landing craft and amphibious tanks churned toward the white sand beaches of Saipan. The island was the last major outpost of Japan's prewar colonial empire that was still under Tokyo's control. Along Saipan's beaches, and in the rugged hills overlooking the U.S. landing beaches, some 31,000 Japanese troops were dug in, determined to stop the American advance or die trying.

An American tank still rests off of a Saipan invasion beach, now home to a resort hotel. Photo: Floyd K. Takeuchi

The battle of Saipan turned out to be one of the bloodiest confrontations of the Pacific War. Despite three days of pre-invasion naval and aerial bombardment, Japanese resistance was fierce on June 15, 1944 when the 2nd and 4th U.S. Marine Divisions landed on Saipan. The U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Battalion later joined those units.

U.S. forces suffered over 4,000 casualties in just the first two days of fighting. On Jul. 9, 1944, 25 days after landing, Marines and Army units secured Saipan. On Aug. 1, after nine days of fighting, Tinian Island, just five miles to the south of Saipan, was under U.S. control.

The final toll, on both sides, was ghastly. Over 5,000 Americans lost their lives in the Marianas campaign. Japanese losses on Saipan totaled 29,500 including large number of civilians.

Little remains to remind visitors of the horrific fighting that practically denuded Saipan. A few U.S. tanks, stopped mid-way in the lagoon on their way to the invasion beaches, are rusting sentinels, their hatches frozen open. There is a major memorial park on Saipan that recognizes the U.S. forces that wrested the island, along with Tinian and Rota, from Japan. But today, tourists, mostly from Japan, frolic along the beaches that were once bloody battlegrounds. And Saipan, along with other islands in what are now the Northern Marianas, is a U.S. Commonwealth, its islanders proudly bearing U.S. passports.

As the 60th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Saipan approaches, the commonwealth is gearing up to host aging veterans and their families, many of whom will be making the long trip to the Western Pacific for the last time. The official program begins on June 12th, and runs through June 18th.

Led by chairman of the 60th anniversary steering committee, Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente and Vice Chairman Jerry Facey, the group began planning over a year ago. Facey says the focus of this year's anniversary is to recognize the veterans as this will probably be their "last significant pilgrimage" to the islands.

Photo: Floyd K. Takeuchi

"We will honor the returnees, those wounded in action, as well as those who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the battle on Saipan and Tinian," Facey told Pacific Magazine in an interview at American Memorial Park on Saipan, site of the festivities planned for this year. As an added attraction, the Veterans of Foreign Wars will hold its 38th annual convention on Saipan to coincide with the 60th anniversary celebrations.

Invitations have been sent to those still alive who took part in the battle of the Marianas and to political leaders throughout the Micronesian region. Commonwealth Gov. Juan N. Babauta and Lt. Gov. Benavente also posted a formal invitation to the veterans of the war at www.WorldWarII.info.

Facey estimates that between 150 to 300 veterans and their families will attend, compared to 125 when the commonwealth marked the 50th anniversary of the invasion 10 years ago. In addition, about 150-200 VFW members who fought in the Pacific campaigns, Korean War and even those from the Vietnam conflict are expected to attend.

The actual ceremony begins June 15 with a commencement mass at the Roman Catholic Church's Chalan Kanoa Cathedral. A parade begins at 4 p.m. at Kristo Rai Church in Garapan all the way to memorial park pavilion. Veterans will ride on "old Jeeps and tractors" that were used during the war, some of which are still operating on the streets of Saipan. At 5:15 p.m. the ceremony in honor of the veterans and their fallen comrades begins at the pavilion.

The highlight of the ceremony will be the medal presentation to all veterans of the Battles of Saipan and Tinian. The medals were donated by the USS Arizona Memorial Museum Association. A reception hosted by Gov. Babauta follows at the park to coincide with a carnival. Dance songs featuring hits of the 1940s will be featured for the rest of the evening.

Throughout the week, veterans will tour the island's of famous battle sites. The highlights of the visit will be the invasion beaches stretching from San Antonio to San Jose villages where the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and the Army's 27th Infantry Divisions landed on the morning of June 15, 1944.

There will be nine seminars about the battle, which will feature three speakers a day. Among them are Guy Gabaldon, a war hero during the Saipan campaign who lived on Saipan in the 1980s before returning to California; "Hap" Holloran, a B-29 navigator shot down over Japan; Giles Anderson, author of "Thunder over Tinian"; Bill Steward, a war historian and military cartographer; Dirk Ballendorf, head of the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam; and James Sweet, a Medal of Honor recipient during the battle of the Solomon Islands.

The weeklong celebration will include various United Service Organization (USO) shows. Right across the street from American Memorial Park is the Victoria Hotel, which will be turned into a festivities center with shops, restaurants, and bars. Organizers are even bringing back World War II-era pricing. A hamburger will cost 25 cents and Cokes will be a nickel a can. Waiters and waitresses will wear 1940s uniforms. The front of the amphitheater at the American Memorial Park will feature a USO façade to make it look like a 1940s theater.

As part of their tour of Tinian, three miles south of Saipan, the veterans will visit B-29 parking spots and the remains of the largest airport in the world at the end of World War II. It is also airfield where a B-29 named Enola Gay took off with its cargo of an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945 bound for Hiroshima. The second atomic bomb dropped in Japan occurred on Aug. 9th from another B-29 named Bockscar, which also took off from Tinian.

Veterans, and those who join them, will find a far different Saipan than what they saw in 1944. There is still evidence of that era: the remains of the Japanese hospital, a statue of the business executive who developed sugar cane cultivation on Saipan; even a jail where, legend has it, aviatrix Amelia Earhart was held.

But other former World War II landmarks have either been plowed under or overgrown. Kobler Airfield, which once was a B-29 bomber base, is now a housing subdivision called, appropriately enough, Koblerville. A golf course now covers part of Marpi, at the northern end of Saipan, where Japan's last-ditch defense of the island resulted in thousands of deaths. Still, "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff," where hundreds of Japanese civilians jumped to their death rather than surrender to advancing American troops, are still there, natural monuments to that bloody time.

All things considered, though, the changes are not bad. The transformation of the Marianas from a wartime battleground to a peaceful, U.S. possession is perhaps the finest memorial of all for the aging veterans who return this June. When the veterans see the Stars and Stripes flying at government offices and elsewhere on Saipan, they may feel that the sacrifices of the thousands of Americans who died in the Marianas was not in vain.