_Navy corpsmen risked their lives daily to treat wounded Marines._]
His account continued with a dramatic description of the tense waiting
he endured, while he listened to the enemy “yells and screams going
on for hours.” The noise increased as Marine artillery and mortars,
pounding in the direction of the Japanese sounds, added to the
deafening din. The Marines were waiting in their foxholes with clips
of ammo placed close at hand so that they could reload fast, fixing
their bayonets onto their rifles, ensuring that their knives were loose
in their scabbard all in anticipation of the forthcoming attacks.
Listening to the screaming, all senses alert, many of the men had
prayers on their lips as they waited. Unexpectedly, there was silence,
a silence that signaled the enemy’s advance. Then:
Suddenly there is what sounded like a thousand people screaming all
at once, as a hoard of “mad men” broke out of the darkness before
us. Screams of “Banzai” fill the air, Japanese officers leading
the “devils from hell,” their swords drawn and swishing in circles
over their heads. Jap soldiers were following their leaders, firing
their weapons at us and screaming “Banzai” as they charged toward
us.
Our weapons opened up, our mortars and machine guns fired
continually. No longer do they fire in bursts of three or five.
Belt after belt of ammunition goes through that gun, the gunner
swinging the barrel left and right. Even though Jap bodies build up
in front of us, they still charged us, running over their comrades’
fallen bodies. The mortar tubes became so hot from the rapid fire,
as did the machine gun barrels, that they could no longer be used.
Although each [attack] had taken its toll, still they came in
droves. Haunting memories can still visualize the enemy only a few
feet away, bayonet aimed at our body as we empty a clip into him.
The momentum carries him into our foxhole, right on top of us.
Then pushing him off, we reload and repeat the procedure.
Bullets whiz around us, screams are deafening, the area reeks with
death, and the smell of Japs and gunpowder permeate the air. Full
of fear and hate, with the desire to kill ... [Our enemy seems to
us now to be] a savage animal, a beast, a devil, not a human at
all, and the only thought is to kill, kill, kill.... Finally it
ends.
This was the wild chaos that General Smith predicted as the final
convulsive effort of the Japanese. And it came indeed in the early
morning hours of 7 July (D+22), the climactic moment of the battle for
Saipan. The theoretical Japanese objective was to smash through Tanapag
and Garapan and reach all the way down to Charan-Kanoa. It was a
“fearful charge of flesh and fire, savage and primitive.... Some of the
enemy were armed only with rocks or a knife mounted on a pole.”
[Illustration: