Download The Mariana and Palau Islands Campaign: The History of the Allied Victory That Preceded the Invasion of the Philippines AudioBook Free
The powerful forces of the United States Navy (USN), Sea Corps, and Army advanced inexorably against Imperial Japan in 1944. Following substantial interdiction of Japanese merchant shipping by American submarines and multiple naval victories, the Americans stood poised to liberate the Philippines, then move on to locations closer to the Japanese home islands. In early 1944, arguments raged in the best method of the "strategic triangle" created by Formosa, Luzon, and China. Finally, on March 12th, the Joint Chiefs of Staff - comprising Admirals William D. Leahy and Ernest J. King, and Generals George C. Marshall and Henry H. "Hap" Arnold - given a directive picking the next focus on: "[T]he most possible method of the Formosa-Luzon-China area is by way of Marianas-Carolines-Palau-Mindanao area, and that the control of the Marianas-Carolines-Palau area is essential to the projection of your forces in to the former area, and their succeeding effective career therefrom." The Americans' plans focused on three islands nearby the southern end of an 15-island, north to south aligned island string: Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. These islands, relatively large, offered space for the construction of large air bases within tactical bomber selection of Japan itself, as well as closer targets. The Japanese also identified the strategic need for the Mariana Islands, and Saipan in particular, given its location just 1,272 kilometers from Tokyo itself. This would place the Japanese capital well within the 3,250 mile selection of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. With these facts in their ownership and the Marianas as one of the Americans' most logical next choices, the Japanese worked to move both reinforcements and materials for new fortifications to the southern Marianas in early 1944. Nevertheless, dangerous USN submarines with driven crews really hampered these initiatives. On Feb 29th, the USS Trout (SS-202), a Tambor-class submarine skippered by Lieutenant Commander Albert Clark, sank the carry Sakito Maru coming to Saipan. This killed 2,420 men up to speed the dispatch, including a considerable portion of the IJA 18th Infantry Regiment. The Trout itself perished with all hands, either to depth charges from the destroyer Asashimo or in one of its Mark XVIII torpedoes running in a group and striking it. Many other transports packed with vital warfare materials went to underneath as the USN submarines interdicted Japanese dispatch traffic to the Marianas. Major Basic Ikeda Keiji complained, "We can not strengthen the fortifications [...] unless we can get materials ideal for permanent construction. Specifically, unless the devices are given cement, metal reinforcements for cement, barbed line, lumber, etc., [...] no matter just how many solders there they can do nothing at all [...] but be seated around with the hands folded, and the situation is intolerable." (Denfeld, 1997, 17). The USN thus used its submarine superiority, to that your Japanese possessed no effective counter-top, to greatly hamper initiatives to fortify and strengthen the Marianas. Get back, the level was placed for the kind of deadly amphibious operations that would happen not only on the Mariana and Palau Islands but also Iwo Jima and Okinawa after it. Because of this, the campaign helped persuade Chief executive Truman to use the atomic bombs against Japan, and the planes that delivered these to Hiroshima and Nagasaki would wrap up removing from airfields produced by the victorious Americans in the wake of the success in the Marianas.
