_An oblique photograph of White Beach 1 was taken before naval gunfire,
artillery, air bombardment, and bulldozers altered its appearance. This
60-yard beach later became the port of entry for most of V Amphibious
Corps’ heavy equipment._]
_The Landing Force: Who, Where, When_
The task of seizing Tinian was assigned to the two Marine divisions
on Saipan--the 2d and the 4th. The third division on the island--the
Army’s 27th Infantry--would remain on Saipan in reserve. All three had
been severely battered during the Saipan campaign, suffering more than
14,000 casualties, including nearly 3,200 dead.
For the 2d Marine Division, the Tinian battle would be the fourth
time around in a span of little more than 18 months. The division
left Guadalcanal in February 1943, having suffered 1,000 battle
casualties. Another 12,500 men had diagnosed cases of malaria. Nine
months later--on 20 November 1943--the division had gone through one of
the most intense 72 hours of combat in the history of island warfare
at Tarawa. It sustained 3,200 casualties, including nearly a thousand
dead. Ten weeks before Tarawa, the division was still malaria-ridden,
with troops being hospitalized for the disease at the rate of 40 a day.
The ranks were filled with gaunt men whose skins were yellowed by daily
doses of Atabrine pills. The Saipan operation seven months later, led
by division commander Major General Thomas E. Watson, took a heavy toll
of these men--5,000 wounded, 1,300 dead.
Watson had earned a reputation at Saipan as a hard-charging leader.
When the division stalled fighting its way up Mount Topatchau, he
was unimpressed. The historian Ronald Spector wrote, in the midst of
that effort, “he was heard shouting over a field telephone, ‘There’s
not a goddamn thing up on that hill but some Japs with machine guns
and mortars. Now get the hell up there and get them!’” His assistant
division commander was Brigadier General Merritt A. “Red Mike” Edson,
who was awarded a Medal of Honor for his heroism on Guadalcanal.
The 4th Division had had a busy, if slightly less demanding, year
as well. It went directly into combat after its formation at Camp
Pendleton, California, landing on 31 January 1944 in the Marshall
Islands where it suffered moderate casualties--fewer than 800 men--in
the capture of Roi-Namur. At Saipan its losses reached 6,000,
including about 1,000 dead. The Tinian landing would be its third in a
little over six months and would be the first under a new divisional
commander--Major General Clifton B. Cates, a well-decorated World War
I veteran, who would become the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps in
1948.
Still, “the morale of the troops committed to the Tinian operation
was generally high,” then-Major Carl W. Hoffman wrote in the official
history of the battle. “This fact takes on significance only when it is
recalled that the Marines involved had just survived a bitter 25-day
struggle and that, with only a fortnight lapse (as distinguished from
a fortnight rest), they were again to assault enemy-held shores....
[Their] spirit ... was revealed more in a philosophical shrug,
accompanied with a ‘here-we-go-again’ remark, than in a resentful
complaint [at] being called upon again so soon.”
The morale of the troops was sustained by the preinvasion fires
directed at Tinian. For Jig minus 1 and Jig Day (Jig being the name
given to D Day at Tinian), Rear Admiral Harry W. Hill, commander of the
Northern Landing Force, had divided the island into five fire support
sectors, assigning specific ships to each. His purpose was two-fold:
destruction and deception to confuse and deceive the Japanese as to the
landing intentions of the Marines.
Tinian Town, under this scheme, got the heaviest pounding the day
before the landing--almost 3,000 rounds of 5- to 16-inch shells from
the battleships _Colorado_, _Tennessee_, and _California_, the cruiser
_Cleveland_, and seven destroyers: _Ramey_, _Wadleigh_, _Norman Scott_,
_Monssen_, _Waller_, _Pringle_ and _Philip_. _Colorado_ had the best
day, knocking out with 60 rounds of 16-inch shells the two 6-inch
coastal defense guns the Japanese had emplaced on the west coast near
Faibus San Hilo Point, guns that easily could have covered the White
Beaches.
Firing on the White Beach area itself was minimal for purposes of
deception and for lack of suitable targets. The cruiser _Louisville_
fired 390 rounds into the area before calling it a day.
[Illustration: TINIAN AND SOUTHERN SAIPAN