Part of Japan’s terrible cost on Guam was the 10,971 bodies already counted. Yet there were some 10,000 Japanese still on the island. At first some of these men fought and staged ambushes, and a few sniped at the Americans, but soon the remaining Japanese sought only one thing—food! Most of the others fled when encountered. The Japanese now had no central command. They starved, died of dysentery, became too weak to flee, and then blew themselves up with the one precious grenade which they saved to take their own lives. Aggressive American patrols were soon killing or capturing 80 Japanese soldiers and sailors a day. A daring few stole into Marine food storage areas at night. One soldier scribbled: “All around me are enemy only. It takes a brave man indeed to go in search of food.”
Enemy holdouts accompanied by their mascot are brought in to surrender after intensive preparations by the Island Command Psychological Warfare Unit.
In addition to the battlefield casualties, more than 8,500 Japanese were killed or captured on Guam between August 1944 and the end of the war in August 1945.
In the 21 days of the Guam campaign ending 10 August, Marine units of the III Amphibious Corps reported 1,190 men killed in action, 377 dead of wounds, and 5,308 wounded. The 77th Division’s casualties were 177 soldiers killed and 662 wounded. The Army and the Marines were a closely knit team in the recapture of Guam. It is reputed that General Holland Smith was the first to refer to General Bruce’s troops as the “77th Marines.” Major Aplington, a battalion commander in the 3d Marines, commented on the soldiers:
In their fatigues so different from our herringbone utilities and their olive drab ponchos (ours were camouflaged) so different from us ... there was no doubt in our minds that the 77th were good people to have alongside in a fight and as a result we referred to them as “The 77th Marine Division.”
On the same busy day, 10 August, only hours after Major Culpepper’s battalion had knocked out the last of the Japanese tanks, the Indianapolis (CA 35) steamed into Apra Harbor with Marine Corps Commandant Lieutenant General Alexander A. Vandegrift on board, accompanying Admiral Nimitz. On 15 August, Admiral Nimitz directed that his forward CinCPac-CinCPOA headquarters be established on Guam, and from here, he directed the rest of the Pacific War. Soon after, from airfields on Guam, as well as those on Tinian, B-29s were blasting the Japanese home islands. Hard fighting was yet to be experienced by Marine divisions on Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. But whether they knew it or not, the end of the war was less than a year away.
The architects of victory in the Pacific met together on Guam on 10 August 1944, when Indianapolis (CA 35) brought Commandant of the Marine Corps LtGen Alexander A. Vandegrift together with Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, Adm Chester W. Nimitz and Fifth Fleet Commander Adm Raymond L. Spruance to the island. From left are MajGen Roy S. Geiger, Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps; Adm Spruance; LtGen Holland M. Smith, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific; Adm Nimitz; and Gen Vandegrift. While together they discussed the future course of the Pacific War.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92087
