_Attacking Marines hold up their advance in the face of an exploding
Japanese ammunition dump after an attack by Navy planes supporting the
drive across Tinian. Note the trees bent over by the force of shock
waves caused by the eruption._]
South of Mount Lasso, nearly six miles from the White Beaches, was
the Japanese _Mobile Counterattack Force_--a 900-man battalion of the
_135th Infantry Regiment_, equipped with new rifles and demolition
charges. Its journey toward the northwestern beaches and the Marine
lines was perilous. All movements in daylight were under air
surveillance and vulnerable to American fire power. But the battalion
set out under its commander--a Captain Izumi--and was hit on several
occasions by unobserved artillery and naval gunfire. Izumi pushed
on and got to his objective through skillful use of terrain for
concealment. At 2230 he began probing the center of the Marine line
where the 2d Battalion, 24th Marines under Garretson was tied in with
the 3d Battalion under Chambers.
“While most of these Japanese crept along just forward of the lines,”
Carl Hoffman wrote, “... a two-man reconnaissance detail climbed up
on a battered building forward of the 24th Marines and audaciously
(or stupidly) commenced jotting notes about, or drawing sketches of,
the front lines. This impudent gesture was rewarded with a thundering
concentration of U.S. artillery fire.”
[Illustration: _Amphibian tractors line up waiting to discharge their
Marine passengers on the beach. The almost complete devastation of
Japanese beachhead defenses, which was not entirely expected by the
Marines, permitted this peaceful combat landing._
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 93379
]
[Illustration: