On the other hand, the big things had gone well in the morning and
afternoon. By the standards of Tarawa and Saipan, casualties were
light--15 dead, 225 wounded. The body count for the Japanese was
438. Despite drizzling rain, narrow beaches, and undiscovered mines,
15,600 troops were put ashore along with great quantities of materiel
and equipment that included four battalions of artillery, two dozen
half-tracks mounting 75mm guns, and 48 medium and 15 flame-throwing
tanks which found the Tinian terrain hospitable for tank operations.
The tanks had gotten into action early that morning, leading the 24th
in tank-infantry attacks. They also had come to the aid of the 23d
Marines as that regiment moved inland to take over the division’s
right flank. The beachhead itself was of respectable size, despite the
failure of some units to reach their first-day objectives. It extended
inland nearly a mile and embraced defensible territory. On the whole,
it had not been a bad day’s work.
[Sidebar (page 9): Tinian Defense Forces
Japanese military fortification of Tinian and other islands in the
chain had begun--in violation of the League of Nations Mandate--in the
1930s. By 1944, the Tinian garrison numbered roughly 9,000 army and
navy personnel, bringing the island’s total population to nearly 25,000.
The _50th Infantry Regiment_, detached from the _29th Division_ on
Guam, was the principal fighting force. It had been stationed near
Mukden, Manchuria, from 1941 until its transfer in March 1944 to
Tinian. Many of its troops were veterans of the Manchurian campaigns.
The regiment was commanded by Colonel Kiyoshi [also spelled “Keishi”]
Ogata and consisted of three 880-man infantry battalions, a 75mm
mountain artillery battalion equipped with 12 guns, engineer,
communication, and medical companies, plus a headquarters and various
specialized support units, including a company of 12 light tanks and
an anti-tank platoon. He also had a battalion of the _135th Infantry
Regiment_ with a strength of about 900 men. Altogether, slightly more
than 5,000 army troops were assigned to the island’s defense.
The principal navy unit was the _56th Naval Guard Force_, a 1,400-man
coastal defense unit, supplemented by four construction battalions with
a combined strength of 1,800 men. Other naval units, totaling about
1,000 men, included ground elements of seven aviation squadrons and a
detachment of the _5th Base Force_.
The navy personnel--about 4,200 altogether--were under the immediate
command of Captain Oichi Oya. Both Oya and Ogata were outranked on the
island by Vice Admiral Kakuji Kakuda, commander of the _1st Air Fleet_
with headquarters on Tinian. But Kakuda, as the invasion neared, had no
air fleet to command. Of the estimated 107 planes based at Tinian’s air
fields, 70 had been destroyed on the ground early in June by U.S. air
strikes. By the time of the Tinian landing on 24 July, none of Kakuda’s
planes were operative.
Kakuda had a bad reputation. He was, by Japanese physical standards, a
hulking figure: more than six feet tall, weighing more than 200 pounds.
“He willingly catered,” Hoffman wrote, “to his almost unquenchable
thirst for liquor; he lacked the fortitude to face the odds arrayed
against him at Tinian.” Historian Frank Hough called him “a drunk and
an exceedingly unpleasant one, from all accounts.”
On 15 July, nine days before the invasion, Kakuda and his headquarters
group attempted to escape via rubber boats to Aguijan Island where they
hoped to rendezvous with a Japanese submarine. This effort failed. He
tried again on five successive nights with the same results, finally
abandoning the effort on 21 July. He fled with his party from Tinian
Town to a cave on Tinian’s east coast where they awaited their fate.
A Japanese prisoner who described Kakuda’s escape efforts assumed he
had committed suicide after the American landing, but this was never
verified. Toward the end of the battle for Tinian, one of Kakuda’s
orderlies led an American patrol to the cave. The patrol was fired upon
and two Marines were wounded. A passing group of Marine pioneers sealed
the cave with demolition charges but it is unknown whether Kakuda was
inside.
Admiral Kakuda in any case took no part in directing the Japanese
resistance. For purposes of defending the island, command of both
army and navy forces was assumed by Colonel Ogata, but co-operation
between the two service branches was less than complete. Frictions were
reflected in diaries found among the Japanese documents captured on
Tinian. A soldier in the _50th Regiment_’s artillery battalion wrote:
9 March--The Navy stays in barracks buildings and has liberty every
night with liquor to drink and makes a big row.
We, on the other hand, bivouac in the rain and never get out on
pass. What a difference in discipline!
12 June--Our AA guns [manned by the Navy] spread black smoke where
the enemy planes weren’t. Not one hit out of a thousand shots. The
Naval Air Group has taken to its heels.
15 June--The naval aviators are robbers.... When they ran off to
the mountains, they stole Army provisions....
The defenses of Tinian were dictated by the geography of the island. It
is encircled by coral cliffs which rise from the coastline and are a
part of the limestone plateau underlying the island. These cliffs range
in height from 6 to 100 feet; breaks in the cliff line are rare and
where they occur are narrow, leaving little beach space for an invasion
force. Along the entire coastline of Tinian, only four beaches were
worthy of the name.
The largest and most suitable for use by an amphibious force was in
front of Tinian Town in Suharon Harbor. It consisted of several wide,
sandy strips. The harbor was mediocre but provided in fair weather
limited anchorage for a few ships which could load and unload cargo at
two piers available at Tinian Town.
From the beginning, Colonel Ogata assumed that this beach would be
the first choice of the Americans. Of the roughly 100 guns in fixed
positions on the island--ranging from 7.7mm heavy machine guns to
6-inch British naval rifles--nearly a third were assigned to the
defense of Tinian Town and its beaches and to the airfield at Gurguan
Point, two-and-a-half miles northwest of the town. Within a two-mile
radius of the town were the _2d Battalion_ of the _50th Infantry
Regiment_, 1,400 men of the _56th Naval Guard Force_, a tank company of
the _18th Infantry Regiment_, and the _1st Battalion, 135th Infantry
Regiment_, which had been designated as the mobile counterattack force.
Their area of responsibility extended to Laslo Point, the southernmost
part of the island and, on the east, to Masalog Point. It was
designated the “Southern Sector” in Ogata’s defense plan.
The remainder of the island was divided into northeastern and
northwestern sectors. The northeastern sector included the Ushi Point
airfields and a potential landing beach 125 yards wide south of Asiga
Point on the east coast of the island. In this sector, between 600 and
1,000 navy personnel were stationed around the Ushi Airfields. The _2d
Battalion_ of the _50th Infantry Regiment_, along with an engineer
group, was stationed inland of Asagi Point. The northwestern sector
contained two narrow strips of beach 1,000 yards apart. One of them was
60 yards wide and the other about 160. They were popular with Japanese
civilians. The sand was white and the water was swimmable. They were
known locally as the White Beaches and that is what they were called
when they were chosen--to the great surprise of the Japanese--as the
American invasion route.
This sector was defended very modestly by a single company of infantry,
an antitank squad, and, about 500 yards northeast of the White Beaches,
gun crews situated in emplacements containing one 37mm antitank gun,
one 47mm antitank gun, and two 7.7mm machine guns.
Ogata established his command post in a cave on Mount Lasso in the
center of the northern region, roughly equidistant--a little over two
miles--from beaches on either side of the island.
He issued on 25 June an operation order saying “the enemy on Saipan
can be expected to be planning a landing on Tinian. The area of that
landing is estimated to be either Tinian Harbor or Asiga Harbor [on
the northeast coast].” Three days later he followed up with a “Defense
Force Battle Plan” which outlined only two contingencies:
(A) In the event the enemy lands at Tinian Harbor.
(B) In the event the enemy lands at Asiga Bay.
On 7 July Ogata issued a “Plan for the Guidance of Battle” ordering his
men to be prepared not only for landings at Tinian Town and Asiga Bay,
but also for a counterattack in the event the Americans were to invade
across the White Beaches.
In each of the three sectors, according to his battle plan, commanders
were to be prepared to “destroy the enemy at the beach, but [also]
be prepared to shift two-thirds of the force elsewhere.” His reserve
force was to “maintain fortified positions, counterattack points [and]
maintain anti-aircraft observation and fire in its area.” The “Mobile
Counterattack Force” must “advance rapidly to the place of landings,
depending on the situation and attack.” In the event of successful
landings his forces would “counterattack to the water and ... destroy
the enemy on beaches with one blow, especially where time prevents
quick movement of forces within the island.” If things were to go
badly, “we will gradually fall back on our prepared positions in the
southern part of the island and defend them to the last man.”
Some of these orders were contradictory and others were impossible of
execution. But despite the odds against them--bereft of air or sea
support and confronted by three heavily armed divisions only three
miles away on Saipan--the fighting spirit of the Japanese forces had
not been broken by 43 days of the heaviest bombardment, up to then, of
the Pacific war. One of the men of the _50th Infantry Regiment_ wrote
in his diary on 30 June: “We have spent twenty days under unceasing
enemy bombardment and air raids but have suffered only minor losses.
Everyone from the Commanding Officer to the lowest private is full of
fighting spirit.” His entry for 19 July, five days before the American
landings, was upbeat: “How exalted are the gallant figures of the Force
Commander, the Battalion Commander, and their subordinates, who have
endured the violent artillery and air bombardment.”
]
_Counterattack_
At about 1630, the 4th Division commander, General Cates, ordered
his forces to button up for the night. A nighttime counterattack was
expected. Barbed wire, preloaded on amphibian vehicles (DUKWs), was
strung all along the division front. Ammunition was stacked at every
weapons position. Machine guns were emplaced to permit interlocking
fields of fire. Target areas were assigned to mortar crews. Artillery
batteries in the rear were registered to hit probable enemy approach
routes and to fire illuminating shells if a lighted battlefield was
required. Of great importance, as it turned out, was the positioning up
front of 37mm guns and cannister ammunition (antipersonnel shells which
fired large pellets for close-in fighting); in the night fighting that
followed, they inflicted severe losses on the enemy.
As the troops dug in to await whatever the night would bring, the 24th
Marines, backed up by the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, occupied the
northern half of the defensive crescent. The 25th and a battalion of
the 23d occupied the southern half of the crescent with the remainder
of the 23d in reserve. On the beaches in the rear, artillery battalions
from the 10th and 14th Marines, engineer battalions, and other special
troops were on alert.
[Illustration: