Navy Chaplains
Two types of non-combatants are attached to Marine units: members of the Navy Medical Corps and Navy Chaplain Corps. Whenever the Marines are in combat, they are well tended to in body and soul on the front lines. Navy Lieutenant John H. Craven, Chaplain Corps, earned the Bronze Star for his actions under fire on Saipan. Later he summarized activities:
“In combat our main action was to go from place to place, unit to unit, and start out early in the morning and go till dark, just visiting one unit after the other and many times just have a very brief service. We had some very small hymn books ... and some Testaments I could carry in my map case, and we would just gather a few men together in a bomb crater or defilade ... and I would have one service after the other. Sometimes we had twelve, thirteen, or fourteen of those in one day, especially on Sunday....
“Then we had to take our turn at the cemetery. Each chaplain from different units would go down and take his turn for burial. We had a brief committal service for each one as they brought the bodies in. And I set myself up to try to keep up with all of the men of our units: where they were, whether they were in the hospital. I worked closely with a sergeant major and it was amazing how we were able to keep up with men, and when they were killed and when and where they were buried.”
Craven kept a notebook listing all the casualties, and he would keep that current from day to day. Each evening he would compare notes with the regimental sergeant major. It was a help to any chaplain to know who were casualties and where, and to report and work with their friends, and it was also a help to the sergeant major because it verified reports he got.
When Chaplain Craven and the other chaplains returned to the rear areas with their units, they started writing letters to the families of everyone who was killed in the regiment, and added their letters to those the commanding officers were required to write.
One other regimental chaplain used a special type of ministration. He had a canvas gas-mask carrier slung over each shoulder. In one carrier he had Scotch whiskey, in the other fried chicken. As he knelt by each young, frightened, wounded Marine, he was invariably asked, “Am I going to be O.K.?” “Sure you are!” was the cheerful answer. “While you are waiting to be evacuated, would you rather have a drumstick or a wing?” The young Marine would be so surprised he would forget about himself. Then, when the chaplain asked if he wanted to wash it down with a swig of Scotch, he couldn’t believe he was hearing correctly amidst all the confusion, noise, and death all around him.
A young doctor, hearing about this chaplain, said, “That man probably saved more young lives from dying of shock than will ever be known.”
Watercolor by SSgt John Fabion, Marine Corps Art Collection.
The Saipan cemetery was dedicated after the battle.
D+24, 9 July
It was to be the final day of a long, grueling campaign. The 6th and 8th Marines came down from the hills to the last western beaches, while the 4th Marine Division, with the 2d Marines attached, reached Marpi Point, the northern end of the island.
There a final drama of horror was played out. Lieutenant Colonel Chambers watched, amazed:
During this day as we moved along the cliffs and caves, we uncovered civilians all the time. The Jap soldiers would not surrender, and would not permit the civilians to surrender. I saw with my own eyes women, some carrying children, come out of the caves and start toward our lines. They’d be shot down by their own people. I watched any number of women carrying children come down to the cliffs that dropped to the ocean.
They were very steep, very precipitous. The women would come down and throw the children into the ocean and jump in and commit suicide. I watched one group at a distance of perhaps 100 yards, about eight or ten civilian men, women and children get into a little huddle and blow themselves up.... It was a sad and terrible thing, and yet I presume quite consistent with the Japanese rules of Bushido.
Lieutenant Stott in that same division witnessed other unbelievable forms of self-destruction:
Interpreters were summoned, and they pleaded by amplifier for the civilians to come forward in surrender. No movement followed.... The people drew closer together into a compact mass. It was still predominantly civilians, but several in uniform could be distinguished circling about in the throng and using the civilians for protection. As they huddled closer, sounds of a weird singing chant carried up to us. Suddenly a waving flag of the Rising Sun was unfurled. Movement grew more agitated; men started leaping into the sea, and the chanting gave way to startled cries, and with them the popping sound of detonating grenades. It was the handful of soldiers, determined to prevent the surrender or escape of their kinfolk, who tossed grenades into the milling throng of men, women, and children, and then dived into the sea from which escape was impossible. The exploding grenades cut the mob into patches of dead, dying, and wounded, and for the first time we actually saw water that ran red with human blood.
With this kind of fanaticism characterizing the Japanese, it is not surprising that 23,811 of the enemy were known dead, with uncounted thousands of others charred by flamethrowers and sealed forever in their caves. Only 736 prisoners of war were taken, and of these 438 were Koreans. American casualties numbered 3,225 killed in action, 13,061 wounded in action, and 326 missing in action.
The island was officially declared “secured” at 1615 on 9 July (although “mopping up” continued afterwards). The 4th Marine Division was later awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its “outstanding performance in combat” on Saipan and its subsequent assault on the neighboring island of Tinian.
Saipan’s Legacy
The campaign on Saipan had brought many American casualties, and it also heralded the kind of fighting which would be experienced in subsequent operations in the Central and Western Pacific in the days that lay ahead in the Pacific War. Holland Smith declared it “the decisive battle of the Pacific offensive” for it “opened the way to the home islands.” Japanese General Saito had written that “the fate of the Empire will be decided in this one action.” A Japanese admiral agreed, “Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan.” It had truly been a “strategic strike” for the United States.
The proof of these fundamental judgements was dramatized four months later, when 100 B-29 bombers took off from Saipan bound for Tokyo.
There were other fateful results. The United States now had a secure advanced naval base for further punishing strikes close to enemy shores. Emperor Hirohito was now forced to consider a diplomatic settlement of the war. The militaristic General Tojo, the Premier, and his entire cabinet fell from power on 18 July, nine days after Saipan’s loss.
The lessons learned in this campaign would be observed in future American operations, as flaws were analyzed and corrected. The clear need to improve aviation support for the ground troops led directly to the better results in the Philippine Islands and on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The artillery-spotting missions flown by VMO-2 and -4, set a pattern for the use of the light planes in the future.
Naval gunfire support was also closely reviewed. General Saito had written, “If there just were no naval gunfire, we feel we could fight it out with the enemy in a decisive battle.” While more than 8,500 tons of ammunition were fired by U.S. Navy ships, the flat trajectory of the naval guns “proved somewhat limiting,” as the shells didn’t have the plunging and penetrating effect which was needed against Japanese strongholds.
Finally, there were lessons learned from the supply confusion that had marred the early days on the beaches and hadn’t improved much since the days of the Guadalcanal landing. Logistic problems had arisen because, once a beach was in friendly hands, the ships were unloaded as rapidly as possible and the sailors in the landing craft were in a hurry to get into the beaches and back out again. Supplies were spread all over the beach, partly because of the enemy’s artillery and mortar harassing fire on the beaches, but also because of the corps’ hard-driving, rapid attack, the estimate of resupply requirements was far too small. For example, a shortage of radio batteries was never corrected. There was insufficient time to sort and separate equipment and supplies adequately. Consequently, there were mix-ups, with Marine uniforms getting into Army dumps and Army supplies showing up in Marine dumps.
It was after the beach confusion at Saipan that the Navy decided a permanent corps shore party should be organized. It would be solely responsible for the movement of all supplies from the beach to the dumps and for the subsequent issue to the divisions.
Tactical lessons learned were also new to the Central Pacific war. Instead of a small atoll, the battle had been one of movement on a sizable land mass, and it was further complicated by the numerous caves and the defensive systems they provided for the Japanese. The enemy had defended caves before, but never on such a large scale. On Saipan, these caves were both natural and man-made. Often natural vegetation gave them excellent camouflage. Some had steel doors which could be opened for an artillery piece or machine gun to fire, and then retreat behind the door before return fire could take effect. The flame-throwing tanks could reach many of these caves and so proved very useful. Unfortunately, their range was limited on Saipan, but this was later improved.
Thus it was that the hard experiences on Saipan led to a variety of changes which paid valuable dividends in saving American lives in the future Pacific campaigns. And the loss of the island was a strategic strike from which the Japanese never recovered, as the United States drove forward to ultimate victory.
Sources
There are five principal official sources for the facts about the unit actions on Saipan. These range from preliminary, condensed accounts to massive, detailed final studies which reach down to the level of company operations. In the interests of brevity, the author of this monograph has limited himself to covering the actions of regiments and divisions, with minor special exceptions.
The five sources are:
1) Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, vol. 3, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1966).
2) Philip A. Crowl, Campaign in the Marianas, vol 9, United States Army in World War II, The War in the Pacific (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1960).
3) Maj Carl W. Hoffman, USMC, Saipan: The Beginning of the End (Washington: Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1950).
4) Capt James R. Stockman, USMC, Campaign for the Marianas (Washington: Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1946).
5) Capt Edmund G. Love, USA, The 27th Infantry Division in World War II (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1949).
In addition, there is a wide variety of other literature on the Saipan operation. This material ranges from a 19-page essay by a Naval Academy midshipman, to first-hand accounts appearing in the Marine Corps Gazette, to wildly subjective books dealing with individual experiences or the “Smith vs Smith” controversy.
To supplement the framework of unit tactics, vignettes of individuals have been drawn from two principal sources:
1) The Personal Papers Collection of the Marine Corps Historical Center has useful memoirs, particularly those of Frederick A. Stott (473-4A32), John C. Chapin (671-4A44), and Robert F. Graf (1946-6B12).
2) In the Center’s Oral History Collection, the author examined well over a dozen reminiscences and found only four that involved front-line experiences: Lieutenant Colonel Justice M. Chambers, USMCR (C2); Captain Carl W. Hoffman, USMC, (H2); Lieutenant Colonel William K. Jones, USMC, (J2); and Lieutenant John H. Craven, ChC, USN, (C3).
About the Author
Captain John C. Chapin earned a bachelor of arts degree with honors in history from Yale University in 1942 and was commissioned later that year. He served as a rifle platoon leader in the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division, and was wounded in action during the assault landings on Roi-Namur and Saipan.
Transferred to duty at the Historical Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, he wrote the first official histories of the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions. Moving to reserve status at the end of World War II, he earned a master’s degree in history at George Washington University with a thesis on “The Marine Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1922.”
Now a captain in retired status, he has devoted major portions of 10 years to writing history as a volunteer at the Marine Corps Historical Center. His first publication there was an official monograph, A History of VMFA-115, for one of the Marine Corps’ better-known squadrons. With support from the Historical Center and the Marine Corps Historical Foundation, he then spent some years researching and interviewing for the writing of a new book, Uncommon Men—The Sergeants Major of the Marine Corps. This was published by the White Mane Publishing Co.
Acknowledgement is gratefully made to Lieutenant General William K. Jones, USMC (Ret), for his first draft of an account of the Saipan operation.
THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.
Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by a bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband, Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple Heart.
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)
GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
Benis M. Frank
CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
George C. MacGillivray
EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information
Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician
Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040
1994
PCN 190 003123 00
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
To make this eBook easier to read, particularly on handheld devices, some images have been made relatively larger than in the original pamphlet, and centered, rather than offset to one side or the other; and some were placed a little earlier or later than in the original. Sidebars in the original have been repositioned between chapters and identified as “[Sidebar (page nn):”, where the page reference is to the original location in the source book. In the Plain Text version, the matching closing right bracket follows the last line of the Sidebar’s text and is on a separate line to make it more noticeable. In the HTML versions, that bracket follows the colon, and each Sidebar is displayed within a box.
[Frontispiece]: The original photograph was printed across two pages, and the middle, which appears here as a vertical gap, was lost in the binding. An excellent copy of the full photograph may be found on the web at:
[www.mcu.usmc.mil/historydivision/World%20War%20II/SAIPAN%2083261.jpg]
![[www.mcu.usmc.mil/historydivision/World%20War%20II/SAIPAN%2083261.jpg]](#http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/historydivision/World%20War%20II/SAIPAN%2083261.jpg){kind=link}
Page [17]: “would be multi cave openings” was printed that way.
Page [21]: ‘battalions of the 105th Infantry “were standing still when there was no reason why they should not move forward.” That did it. Jarman relieved the colonel commanding the 106th and replaced him’ was printed that way, with references to two different regiments.