War Stories II (51 page)

Seizing Saipan, Guam, and Tinian was costly for the Americans. The U.S. tallied some 27,000 Marines, sailors, and soldiers as casualties. Nearly 5,000 were killed in action or died of wounds. The rest were wounded or MIA and presumed dead. The battles for control of all three islands lasted sixty days. But when it was over, America owned them and their incredibly valuable airfields. They immediately began converting existing 4,700-foot and 5,000-foot airfields into 8,500-foot runways needed for the B-29s.

It was a strategic victory in other ways. America had severed the main flow of Japanese raw materials, reinforcements, and matériel from the Home Islands bound for the south.

The U.S. was now in a position to move on the Palau Islands, the Philippines, or even northwest toward Iwo Jima or the cost of China.

In August 1944, the entire Mariana Islands chain was back in American hands. Later in the war, Nimitz would move his headquarters from Hawaii to Guam. Three months later, the first B-29s would take off from the Marianas to bomb the Japanese mainland. The bombers hit Honshu, striking Japan for the first time since the Doolittle raid in 1942.

Losing the Marianas' “absolute defense zone” was devastating for the Japanese. Once Nimitz seized these islands, American B-29s could hit the Home Islands of Japan. The war leaders in Tokyo were forced to begin serious preparations for handling casualties, evacuating cities, and the possibility of an American invasion.

Tojo, who had been Japanese premier and war minister, resigned three days after the landing at Saipan, even as the Battle of the Philippines Sea was ongoing. One of the members of the Japanese royal family is said to have lamented, “Hell is upon us, with the loss of Saipan.” Tojo, before he was executed for war crimes, said that he felt in his heart that Japan could never win after losing Saipan.

American military leaders began to prepare for the conclusion of the war. For Admiral Nimitz, the prospect of leading even his massive forces into the homeland of Japan was daunting, not only because of the casualties that America would have to expect, but after witnessing how even Japanese civilians seemed bound by the Bushido code and might commit mass suicide, he could see the possible destruction of an entire civilization.

Nimitz was convinced that the plans for a proposed Allied invasion in 1945 or 1946 meant that the Americans would not be fighting the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy when they came ashore in Japan, but would have to battle every civilian old enough to walk and to throw a rock or carry a club.

The cultural brainwashing of the Japanese Bushido code meant tens of millions—perhaps most of the population—would have died. Nimitz had no doubts that many others would have been caught in the crossfire and bombing raids, while millions of others would die in suicide attacks against the American and Allied forces.

Later, after Roosevelt's death, Harry Truman was forced to consider Nimitz's concerns. His Joint Chiefs of Staff had told him to expect 60,000
to 80,000 American casualties at the first landing in Kaishu. They also forecast more than a million Japanese fatalities, including the entire garrison of 600,000, and 500,000 Japanese civilians. Once the Americans pushed onto other Japanese Home Islands they estimated that millions more would die.

Those staggering numbers became part of Truman's equation in deciding to use the atomic bombs to hasten the end of the war.

W
hile the bloody battles for Saipan, Tinian, and Guam were still being fought, the bitter debate over Pacific strategy between MacArthur and Nimitz boiled up once again. MacArthur, having nearly completed operations in New Guinea, had effectively isolated Rabaul. Truk, the only other major Japanese naval and air base east of the Philippines, had been rendered useless by regular air raids and submarine attacks against Japanese vessels entering and leaving the anchorage.

With the Marianas all but secured, MacArthur once again insisted that it was time to make the invasion of the Philippines the main attack in the Pacific—and demanded that he be given the necessary fleet, air, and ground forces to make his “I shall return” promise a reality. Nimitz, in equally strong terms, asserted that continuing his central Pacific “island-hopping” strategy was the most effective way to beat the Japanese. Long an advocate
of using his fast carriers, battleship heavy surface action groups, and amphibious forces for rapid leaps across broad expanses of open ocean, Nimitz once more advocated an assault on Formosa.

In Washington, Admiral King, General Marshall, and the Joint Chiefs tried, as they had in the past, to mediate a compromise between Nimitz and MacArthur. When their efforts failed, they threw the matter to the president. FDR, seeking a fourth term in office, and seeing political advantage in meeting with his two famous commanders, told them to join him for a conference of war in Hawaii. The two men did as ordered, and aboard the USS
Baltimore
in Pearl Harbor—during the only meetings the three wartime leaders would ever have—they hammered out a strategy for defeating Japan.

After listening to Nimitz and MacArthur, FDR decided that the Philippines were to be the next major offensive. Then, if the Japanese didn't surrender unconditionally, the Home Islands would be invaded. MacArthur was assigned to be the principal commander for the task. Nimitz would support him with carriers, battleships, cruisers, submarines, and troops, and would protect MacArthur's right flank by ensuring that the Japanese could not counter-attack from the Palau Islands 600 miles to the east.

MacArthur's first objective was Mindanao, then Leyte, and finally Luzon and the liberation of Manila. As soon as possible, new B-29 Superfortresses would start reducing Japanese factories, shipyards, military facilities, and cities to rubble. About the only issue left undecided was who would command the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands when it came time.

Immediately after the Hawaii conference, MacArthur and Nimitz went to work completing detailed plans for their respective missions. For Nimitz, disappointment at being directed to support the main attack through the Philippines was tempered by the assignment to secure the Palau Islands. That task meant that the 1st Marine Division—which had been “loaned” to MacArthur for operations in New Guinea and New Britain—would be returned to his control.

By 10 August, with “mopping-up” operations underway in the Marianas, Pacific Fleet planners were able to brief Nimitz on their proposal to
“secure” the Palau Islands in plenty of time to release assets—particularly carriers, battleships, and cruisers—to support General MacArthur's three invasions in the Philippines.

Little was known about the Palau Islands—because they had been ceded to Japan after World War I. The American command believed that the only islands that needed to be taken were Ngulu, Ulithi, and Peleliu. The first two, smaller, and, according to U.S. intelligence, less defended, were to be assaulted by the 81st Infantry Division. The battle-hardened 1st Marine Division veterans of Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and New Britain were assigned to take Peleliu.

Just six miles long, two miles wide, and shaped like a lobster claw, Peleliu featured jungle-covered coral ridges and steep draws that revealed little. Numerous reconnaissance photographs were taken by PBYs, long-range land-based aircraft, and planes launched by the carriers—some by George H. W. Bush, the future president of the United States. Yet, despite all the photo missions, radio intercepts, and debriefings from the coast-watching native islanders, there was very little “hard intelligence” about Japanese strength or preparations on Peleliu.

Bombing missions had cratered the island's only major airfield, and ever since the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” the Japanese had abandoned their Palau fleet anchorages. From a desk in Pearl Harbor, it appeared that Peleliu was vulnerable to a good, heavy pre-assault bombardment followed by a quick attack by the 1st Marine Division—now resting and refitting on Pavuvu in the Russell Islands. By 1 September, the division, commanded by Major General William H. Rupertus, was expected to be back to its full complement of 19,000 Marines and ready for D-Day on 15 September 1944.

By the time the troops began to embark aboard their amphibious ships during the first week of September, what the Americans didn't know about Peleliu was far greater than what they did. Those who planned the operation, called “Stalemate,” knew that the island had no rivers or streams. They didn't know, however, that there was no fresh water whatsoever.

U.S. pilots, naval gunfire officers, and Marine intelligence officers knew that early in the war some 3,000 Japanese troops and 500 press-ganged
Korean laborers had improved the fleet anchorage and had built an airfield. The Americans didn't know that the Japanese had constructed hundreds of sophisticated, interconnected caves and tunnels and mutually supporting, hardened fighting positions on the island.

The Marines going ashore knew from past experience that when pressed, Japanese officers would often order their men to conduct suicidal banzai attacks, hastening the defenders' inevitable collapse. But no one knew that Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, commanding the 10,000 tough Japanese troops on Peleliu, had ordered them to stay hidden in their tunnels and caves and “Make the American Marines come to you—and when they do, kill them.” There would be no banzai attacks on Peleliu.

It was still early on D-Day, but from his vantage point aboard the amphibious command ship General Rupertus could already tell things were not going according to plan. Four days ago, while making the 2,100-mile voyage from Pavuvu to Peleliu, he had told his regimental commanders that he expected this part of Operation Stalemate to be “tough but quick,” and that it would all be over in “two or three days.” Given the three days of continuous pounding by carrier aircraft and the battleships' eighteen-inch guns and the cruisers' eight-inch volleys, there was good reason for optimism.