Announcer coming up next, author Sharon Tosi Lacey talks about american strategy in the pacific. Highlighting the battle of saipan. She explains how u. S. Army soldiers and marines worked together during the campaign. She described their successes and failures. The event ran an hour and a half. It was hosted by the new York Military affairs symposium. Sharon tosi lacey thank you very much for having me. I want to thank my mom, daughter and husband for being here to support me. One of the earlier mend mentioned that there were four general smiths in the pacific. 3 were involved in the operations. I titled that chapter a tale of three smiths. I will talk to you about the battle of saipan. I look at the Lessons Learned as the military drove through the Central Pacific in world war ii. We traced their development and amphibious warfare as they go from the canal to the gilberts and ultimately a chronology. Trying to build on the mistakes they continued to make. Saipan is the most interesting of the bowels. Until that point, aquatic canal guadalcanal, nobody really knew what they were doing. The army and the marines conducted separate operations. People often refer to the campaign and the marshals as the perfect campaign. And perfected Amphibious Landing operations here there were a minimal number of problems. They patted themselves on the back. Then we come to saipan. For the first time you have army and Marine Forces operating not only together on the same ground but for longer than three or four days. Except for guadalcanal, the operations had been two or three days. This suited marine tactics. Getting quick, take a lot of casualties upfront and get off the island quickly. Save the casualties later on. For the army, they were more slow and methodical. One of the things i look at is to see if theres a difference between the two methods. Truthfully you take the same number of castle days. About 21 casualties and every one of the battles. There was a virtual no difference. Saipan was perfectly suited for army tactics. A long, slow slog for almost a month. The thing that was different was that the fifth Corps Commander was a marine and convinced you could take any army in the pacific and three days. Because we have perfected the mechanics, saipan is where the culture of the armies and marines began clashing. Personalities took a bigger role in how the forces got along. The far everyone was trying to figure it out. In saipan things came to a head and had repercussions that went on, i would argue it would not be until iraq that we would settle these joint differences and they would put army forces under marines again. Why saipan . Why the marianas islands . They had been talking about the marianas islands since 1943. Admiral king was pretty confident that a marianas were they came to defeating japan were the key to defeating japan because of lines of communication. For the first time at saipan which did not have great anchorages for the navy, they started focusing on airbases. The marianas were in the range of the b29 bombers. Taking the airbases meant we could hit tokyo at will. The general agreed, he wanted to get his bombers over tokyo. You had both generals on the same side of an argument. This was backed up by the joint Strategic Survey committee. That advocated for the Central Pacific as being the main effort with the southwest pacific supporting. Imagine how this went over with macarthur. He was sure that whatever he was was the center of gravity. They argued because abundant conference and came to a tentative agreement. You would think things would be settled. We go to the cairo conference in december 1943. Roosevelt and churchill were in agreement, the marianas were to be the next big battle. The recent successes in the gilberts and the marshals had another admiral advocating lets move this up. They are expecting us in december. If we can hit them earlier, we can catch them by surprise. We know they are doing a lot of building. Lets get them before they build defenses. Content was not having any of that. He and another general almost came to blows over this. The other general wrote later after macarthur exploded at him i could see macarthur for what he was. A magnetic personality with an and tendons a tendency to pontificate. General George Marshall was advocating for the marianas, which surprised macarthur. The one thing he did not direct was how to divide the resources. He told nimitz and mccarthy to divide the resources. That went as well as could be expected. Here is the philippines. Macarthur wanted to march across here because he felt he had a moral obligation to the philippine people. He said they are paying in blood for our blunder. The marianas islands are right here. You can see what type of access you have to japan, everything. Finally, the joint chiefs told them you both present your proposals, you advocate your position and we will make our decision on how well you advocated. The joint chiefs decided they would go to the marianas, the carolines, palau, with the Central Pacific receiving most resources. They were supporting the Central Pacific but it would get quick victories. They decided that an operation would commence on the 15th of june. The largest amphibious operation until that point. It would be dwarfed by the operation in okinawa the next year. There would be three landings. Guam had a special place in the army and navys heart. It had belonged to the United States. It fell to the japanese on the 10th of december. As macarthur felt about the philippines, the navy felt about guam. Their guys were taken down without firing many shots. Most of their rifles were marked for training purposes only. That is how poorly guarded it was. I had the privilege of meeting a pow from guam he celebrated his 100th birthday a few weeks ago. He was taken prisoner and spent the war in a japanese prisoner of war camp in japan. His entire feeling was that someone had to be the pow. If not me, someone else. I have never met anyone with a zen attitude, losing over five years of his life. I he went back for his 99th birthday. Most pows i met very zen. The navy felt a moral obligation. To do these three landings they would have three divisions and an army brigade. On the 22nd of february, the fast Carrier Force 58 did some strikes on saipan to soften up the target. Also to fly reconnaissance. The day they were flying reconnaissance was cloudy so they did not get great pictures. Anyone who has dealt with intelligence knows that black and white pictures are difficult to discern what is what on the ground. They could see fortifications going up for what they were not sure what extent. They did destroy between 135 and 168 japanese planes and ships. The destruction of the airplanes was important because if we could have air superiority and superiority of the sea lanes, that would give us a nn extra edge over the japanese because we knew that the japanese production could not replace their planes. The americans were pumping out one plane per hour. The americans were very smart. They would cycle there experienced pilots back to be instructors. The japanese used their pilots until they died. They knew that the more planes and airmen they could shoot down, the less effective the air force would be. They could not replace the men or the planes. That would feed into the kamikaze strategy they utilized in okinawa. They did not have any other way to use the men. The intelligence was mediocre but they could not risk of doing more. In march, macarthur led an attack in palau 150 japanese planes and they sank 150,000 tons of shipping. Everything the japanese used to reinforce these islands had to come in from elsewhere. Whenever we sank their shipping, there was nothing to replace it with. They did not have Natural Resources and were relying on resources from territories they captured. In april, they destroyed another 93 planes on truck. The other thing they decided on in going through the philippines and through the marianas, it stretch the japanese offenses and force them to divide the resources and divide their attention. Our army and navy just overwhelmed them. Lets talk about the marianas. They are the northernmost islands in micronesia. 15 volcanic islands. Only the three southernmost islands saipan, tinian, and guam, had military value. They were essentially located in range for american bombers. The small garrison had about 400 navy and marines and civilians on it and they were taken on december 10. The marianas were the first tier of the defense of the islands. That is where the japanese expected to hold the americans and not let them break through. The marianas, philippines and then okinawa was the next tier of defense. If the americans could take the marianas, they only admitted it to each other the japanese high command knew that they were doomed if the americans took it. What do the marianas look like . Unlike some the islands in the past, the flat coral islands and the gilberts and marshals, the marianas were covered with vegetation and caves and had limestone cliffs which were lush. 70 of the island was under sugar cultivation. Those sugar canes range about seven feet high so you can imagine being a combat loaded marine. Trying to navigate through that. If you are a defender, that gives you good cover. It provided concealment for the defenders. Lots of biting creatures and critters and things carrying diseases lived in there as well. It is not like you went through and you only had to worry about the enemy. You had to worry about everything else. In the pacific diseases caused , as many casualties as bullets did. There were lots of diseases the doctors had not seen before. Trying to defend against those things was not easy. The other thing, there were 30,000 civilians living on saipan. We had not had to invade an island with that large a civilian population. That changes the calculation of what you can do. You cannot blanket bomb it. When you that most of the civilians did not necessarily sympathize with the japanese. They were not going to help us, they were just trying to keep their heads down and survive. Most of them lived on the western coastal plain. That was where our preinvasion bombing and we knew the landings would come. There were the three largest towns they are. The narrow beaches that we could use for landing ended on cliffs. Not exactly ideal if you are trying to storm from the sea. The only beaches they could come at were, there was a few here. Wherever there is green. All the beaches ended either in cliffs, marshes or cane fields. The seventh mile ridgeline down the island here. One mountain in the south and one mountain in the north. Does give defenders clear views and fields of fire. Date called the area between death valley for obvious reasons. Its amazing to think about guys voluntarily walking through that. The best landing beaches were over here. The japanese knew it and we knew it. There were three airfields. One airfield in the south. One airfield in the west. And a small incomplete airfield , in the north. We did not want to give them any airfields. There was a robust red system in south. When you start moving up the ridgeline, there was practically no roads. The intelligence photos they had taken in march showed lots of movement and feverish preparations by the japanese. Until that point they had paid less than scrupulous attention to what was going on in saipan. After the gilberts and marshalls fell, the marianas became more important. They started sending material and men to build up the defenses. What did the japanese look like there . The highest ranking man was off the tylan off the island at the top of off the island at the time, on guam. He left the Division Commanders in charge. In the japanese military, if we thought that the rivalry was bad between marines and army in the u. S. , it was nothing compared to the japanese army. They were so mistrustful and they barely spoke to each other. They could have been fighting two different wars. The Lieutenant General saito was a 43rd division commander. He was in charge pretty much of the island and was the cavalry officer and was assigned to the army in china. He had not seen any combat during world war ii to this point. Because of where he had been in china. In april 1944 he took command of the division in saipan. Also there was the vice admiral nagumo. This is an interesting guy. I have heard him called the most experienced and worst naval officer in the Japanese Navy. He had been the commandant of the Naval War College and was considered an expert and can conducted the air attack in pearl harbor. He failed to follow through and destroy the american fleet. He lost for carriers at midway. He commanded the third fleet of guadalcanal. After that, they said maybe we should gave him shore duty and taken off the ship. He was given a training suite they gave him the 14th air fleet in saipan which is a nice way to say you can do the least damage here. His command was administrative. Not a Tactical Command. Similarly in the army, we had general robert richardson. Until saipan, that was Holland Smiths status. More of administrative. The 43rd division arrived in late may 1944. Along the way they last 1400 men. They came without organic artillery. The American Navy was getting good at sinking the ships filled with reinforcements. Some of the men arrived with no weapons. Their ships had been sunk and they managed to get on another one. One ship was filled with 4100 reinforcements. We hit it and only 1200 survived. That is the type of beating we were giving then. They called them the remnants and the survivors that accidentally ended up in saipan. When they got there in they did may 1944, not know they were coming in a few weeks. These guys did not have time to train or get organized. The was a total of about 30,000 and that included korean laborers and marine and navy and these stragglers. The u. S. Intelligence estimates put it at only 900011,000. We were not expecting what we found. They built the majority of their senses on the beaches. The idea to this point had been if we can stop the defenders at the beach, we dont have to worry. They planned to do a bunch of ring defenses but they ran out of time. That is a good thought because we know that the Landing Forces is most vulnerable when it is landing. But once they punched through, there was nothing to stop them from rolling you up. The terrain was the best defensive measure they had. That was better obstacles the manmade obstacles. There was no layered defense and they had lost all the construction material. We were sinking 100,000 times here and there. Oddly after looking at the , beaches, they did not focus their defenses here even though they knew this was the most probable landing site. It was the only logical landing site. Since none of the commanders survived, we dont know what goes into their thinking. The japanese did a version of the army green book, the Army Official history of the war. The marines did there red book well in the japanese did 72 , volumes. They are just starting to be translated slowly and its giving us a treasure trove. Its very slow and cumbersome. Money affects everything as well. Despite the february attack when the task force had hit them, they still believed that macarthur was where the main attacks were going to come. Everyone there feared macarthur. If they came to saipan, they thought the earliest would be july or august and they would more than likely not come until november. They were thinking we have got plenty of time until these guys come. They could not have been more wrong. Lets talk about the americans. You had admiral spruance. That is a picture of him smiling. As the most cheerful he ever looked. He replaced halsey at midway and they used to switch up commands. It was the third fleet under halsey and the fifth fleet under spruance that way the japanese thought we had an extra fleet we didnt have. Personality wise, could not be more different. Admiral halsey was flamboyant and well met. And spruance was more spartan. He led the fleet at gilberts and marshalls. His sailors referred to him as old frozen face. His one indulgence was long walks every day. He worked at a standup desk in his office and had no chairs because he reasoned people would not stay there more than 10 minutes of people could not sit down. The man was brilliant. Strategic and tactical and he had the ability to get along with the most difficult people. During this operation, he had the most difficult of people to get along with. I would take old frozen face with his ability. Underneath him was admiral Richmond Kelly turner. He was the chief of naval war plans at pearl harbor and was accused of withholding intel which is an ongoing debate of who knew what. I dont think we will ever settle the pearl harbor debate. He commanded the amphibious forces in the gilberts and marshalls. And his nickname was terrible turner. He had an explosive temper and he wanted to be a marine. He would suit up and want to go land with the marines. Gillian smith on tarawa told him, i do not think so. Although he and Holland Smith got along, that was one of the burrs under his saddle is that Holland Smith commanded until the battle started. He did training and administrative staff. Until the Landing Force landed turner got the Tactical Command while the forces were landing. And then it was turned over to whoever the commander was on the ground. Holland smith was cut out completely. Interestingly he was very close , with spruance and nimitz. They were such Close Friends that they are all buried together in Golden Gate National cemetery. And their wives are at their feet. He met his match in Holland Smith. One of the people turner worked for called him the meanest man but the most competent naval officer. Unlike spruance, turner was a heavy drinker. But it never seems to affect his performance. He was throwing back every night. Nimitz decided and spruance decided as long as he kept performing as he did, they would not make a big deal