Strong Men Armed

and her bottom blew down. She rolled over on her left side and sank by the stern, taking with her many airplanes and all but 500 of her 2,150 officers and men. Among those who survived were Admiral Ozawa and his staff.

Carrying the admiral’s flag and a framed portrait of the Emperor, Ozawa and his staff were ferried by lifeboat to the destroyer Wakatsuki. From there Ozawa moved to Zuikaku, and it was aboard this carrier that he received the first of those terrible reports that bore upon his head like hammer blows.

Not only was Taiho lost and Shokaku sunk, but his airplanes and aviators were being torn to bits in the battles which the Americans would derisively name “The Marianas Turkey Shoot.” That day alone Ozawa lost 330 planes, against 30 American craft destroyed—the most resounding single day’s defeat in the history of aerial warfare. Next day he lost a third carrier, Hiyo, plus two tankers, and seven more of his ships were damaged. The airfields on Guam were turned into rubble by the American bombers. He himself was forced to flee toward Okinawa, with Admiral Ugaki following.

There was no rescue at Saipan. In the log of the commander who opened battle June 19 with 430 aircraft on his decks, there was this ominous entry on the night of June 20:

“Surviving carrier air power: 35 aircraft operational.”

The disaster had been even greater. With scout planes and land-based air losses added in, Japan’s defeat in the Battle of the Philippine Sea totaled 476 airplanes destroyed and 445 aviators killed. American losses were three ships damaged and 130 planes lost—80 of these during night landings at the conclusion of the pursuit of the Japanese-and 76 airmen dead.

No nation had ever been so badly beaten in the skies. But Tokyo was already telling the world of the customary magnificent victory, just as Lieutenant General Saito had been telling Tokyo of the splendid successes being scored in the hot, shell-blasted hills south of Mount Tapotchau.

4

During the first four days of the fighting on Saipan it was a rare Marine who had not felt himself slammed to earth by concussion or had not heard the whine of flying steel and rock or the nasty peening of the bullets, for the Japanese holding the foothills masking Mount Tapotchau in central Saipan were fighting with tenacity and skill.

In those first four days the First Battalion, Sixth, lost all but two of its captains and Lieutenant Colonel Bill Jones concealed his grief in the grim joke that to save these two, “I guess I’d better bust ‘em down to second looey.”

In the Fourth Marine Division’s sector, the eastern half of the island, a battered rifleman also made a sardonic estimate of the first ninety-six hours.

“Three times in the past four days,” he said, “my wife has been almost a rich woman. I could see them counting out my insurance money ten dollars at a time and the wife riding downtown in a new Packard roadster with a spotlight on each side.”

The following four days were equally harrowing, especially for the Third Battalion, Twenty-fifth Marines, under Lieutenant Colonel Justice Chambers.

Chambers was known as Jumpin’ Joe for his exuberant style in the field. He looked a bit like a buccaneer, big and raw-boned, with a cut-down bayonet knife dangling from his cartridge belt alongside a .38 revolver stuck in a special quick-draw holster. Under his left armpit was a .45 shoulder holster. If it were not true that Jumpin’ Joe had used these weapons, as a Raider captain under Red Mike Edson, at Kwajalein, and latterly on Saipan, the effect might have been a caricature of what is supposed to be a type of Marine commander.

But Jumpin’ Joe was genuine, as were the men who called themselves Chambers’ Raiders and who spent the last half of their eight days on the line overrunning the defenses around Hill 500.

The hill was actually a clutter of rocky peaks which commanded most of southern Saipan and which also covered the approaches to Mount Tapotchau. It was about a mile inland from the eastern coast. It was pocked with caves filled with machine guns carefully sighted in on the flat, approaching plain.

Chambers got his men across the plain and up to the base of the hill by laying down a covering smokescreen. Before they attacked, the hill’s defenses were showered by 4.5-inch rockets fired by rocket trucks, just appearing in the Pacific War. Then Chambers’ men charged. Hunched, bent-over figures shadowy in the thinning smoke, they went up Hill 500 while artillery shells walked briskly up the slopes ahead of them. Six machine guns gathered in a single cave raked them, but by midafternoon they had taken Hill 500.

“We lost fifty men, but we came a’hellin’ and took our objective,” Jumpin’ Joe Chambers said.

Of these 50 casualties, only nine were killed, although there were more that night when the Japanese counterattacked, waving knives and bayonets lashed to poles—“idiot sticks” as the Marines called them.

In the morning Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson joined the battalion as a division observer while Jumpin’ Joe led his men farther north toward Tapotchau. In two days they had overrun Hill 500’S peaks and were debouching into a valley beyond.

There they walked into a trap. Machine guns to either side began chattering and mortars could be seen rising from a clump of woods to the front. Pfc. Vito Cassaro, Chambers’ radioman, was hit almost immediately. Chambers and Carlson went out to rescue him and bullets made smacking sounds in someone’s flesh.

“I’m hit,” Carlson gasped.

The famous Raider leader had been shot in the leg and another bullet had shattered an arm. He was dragged to safety, along with Cassaro, and placed on a stretcher.

“Last time I was wounded was the First World War,” he told Chambers. “If I can keep ‘em that far apart I’ll be all right.”

He was carried to the rear, still chomping on his foul pipe while he dictated a memo covering the location of a new division command post. Behind him, as Chambers’ Marines pulled out of the valley pocket, it was seen that there was still a wounded man lying out in the open. He was unconscious. His crumpled body made a fine aiming reference for the Japanese gunners in the woods beyond. Each time someone crawled out for him, a spate of bullets drove him back.

Then the tanks arrived. A Sherman commanded by Lieutenant Robert Stevenson lumbered out into the valley with bullets spanging harmlessly off its steel hide. The Sherman straddled the unconscious Marine. It rolled forward and obscured him.

“Open the escape hatch and drag him in,” Stevenson ordered.

It was done, the man was saved—and the other tanks joined Stevenson to lead the advance. Half-tracks and 37’s also came up. The emplaced Japanese began to withdraw.

“Come get us, Marines,” they cried.

“Take your time, boys,” the Marines replied. “We will.”

The Japanese began blowing up positions and supplies. They blew up an ammunition dump near the battalion CP and the blast knocked Jumpin’ Joe Chambers unconscious.

He was taken to the rear while Major Jim Taul took command, but the moment Chambers had regained consciousness he was on his feet and demanding the return of his weapons.

“But you can’t go back there, sir,” said the battalion surgeon.

“You’re a casualty.”

“Casualty, hell!” Jumpin’ Joe exploded. “You’ll have to lock me up if you want to keep me here.”

Chambers returned to his battalion, but to his ill-concealed annoyance, and to the unconcealed delight of Major Taul, the objective had already been taken. All along the line by late afternoon of June 22, the Fourth Division had gained 2,000 yards. On the left the Second Division held half of Mount Tipo Pale and was prepared to strike Mount Tapotchau itself about 600 yards northeast.

By nightfall of this eighth day of battle about six of Saipan’s 14 miles in length were in American hands. This represented most of the southern half of the island, although there was still a Japanese pocket down at Nafutan Point on the southernmost tip of the east coast. The Japanese on Nafutan—about 500 of them—had been bypassed in the rush to take Aslito Airfield. They were now hemmed in by the 27th Division’s 105th Infantry, which was preparing to clean out the point.

Elsewhere on Saipan the engineers had made rapid progress on improving the airfield-now called Isely Field