War in the Pacific

The following newspaper articles were contributed by our shipmate Leroy B. Bardwell

The land invasion of Leyte in the Philippines and the naval Battle of Leyte Gulf 50 years ago were milestones in World War II.

Just as at Pearl Harbor, the beginning, and at Normandy, the beginning of the end in the European Theater, central Louisianians were at Leyte.

Actions there made defeat of the Japanese more imminent. Many veterans of that campaign contacted or were contacted by The Town Talk to tell their stories.

For the most part, this batch of veterans seems to be just as unassuming as those of the other milestones of the war. If there is a common thread, it is fear in a strange combination with knowledge they were well trained and did their jobs.

It was 50 years ago last week that American Army troops had stormed the beaches of Letye after intense naval bombardment to soften the landing zones. And it was 50 years ago this weekend that the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle of all time, was waged. That sea battle literally broke the back of the Japanese navy.

Those who were there probably didn’t know how significant their efforts were to be. Adm. Mitsumasa Yonai, Japan’s navy minister, said later, “Our defeat at Leyte was tantamount to the loss of the Philippines. When you look at the Philippines, that was the end of our resources.”

In an October article in Naval History, retired Lt. Comdr. Thomas J. Cutler says the Battle of Leyte Gulf “represented the last hope of the Japanese Navy ... a defeat would have been disastrous.”

Not only was much of the Japanese fleet destroyed, but its ground forces lost their means of supply. With control of Leyte came control of the sea lanes for oil from the Netherlands East Indies, tin and rubber from Malaya and rice from Indochina not to mention the resources of the islands themselves.

The initial land invasion by the 1st Cavalry, 7th, 24th and 96th infantry divisions at Tacloban and Dulag where the Japanese had key airstrips was not as bloody as others of the Pacific and European campaigns. Resistance, relatively speaking, was light. That changed as American forces went inland to fight the best of Japanese forces whose strategy was to wage the fight inland.

The sea battle was another story. The Japanese navy came from three approaches, and the American 3rd and 7th fleets approached from one direction.

Central Louisianians were there on land, on sea and in the air. Their stories begin on Page A-11 in today’s Town Talk.

Even though he was a 19-year-old Navy corpsman who went in with the first Marines at Saipan on June 15, 1944, William Riggs today remembers more of the big picture.

It was from Saipan that B-29 bombers could fly missions all the way to Japan. He was with the Marines at Tinian, too, and that’s where the flights carrying atomic bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki originated.

“It was the most important piece of land we took,” Riggs said last week from his home in Jordan Hill in Winn Parish. Those two missions ended the war.

Riggs was one of a number of veterans of the Pacific campaign in World War II who contacted The Town Talk in recent weeks to give their account of actions in the war.

Many who responded were in later Pacific campaigns such as the Battle of the Philippines, Leyte, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. As key anniversaries come up, they will be contacted again for anniversary accounts.

In the meantime, it must be remembered that those who have their own “D-Days” in France or in the Pacific 50 years ago right now were still slugging it out in the two-front war with Germany and Japan.

And those who survived went on to fight other key battles. Riggs remembers “heavy artillery” on the beach at Saipan where he accompanied the head-quarters company of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division. He was also with Marines manning 81-millimeter mortars.

n Jesse Richardson, 70 of Alexandria was a military police man with the 4th Marine Division, but he went ashore at Saipan with the grunts and carried a machine gun. “We got in there, and there was awfully heavy mortar and artillery fire. It was one of the worst days of my life. I lost my lieutenant who was one of the finest people I ever knew.”

Asked what he thought about as he approached the beach, Richarson said, “I was more concerned about getting there. Amphibious tracks and tanks were overturning on that coral reef. With so many people crowded in, you might have a hell of a time getting out.”

The danger of drowning along with the dangers of rifle, machine gun, mortar and artillery fire was there. But Richardson pointed out one warning given out by a medical officer in written form that added even more danger.

The warning reads: “In the surf, beware of sharks, barracuda, sea snakes, anemones, razor sharp coral, polluted waters, poison fish and giant clams that shut on a man like a bear trap. Ashore, there is leprosy, typhus, filariasis, yaws, typhoid, dengue fever, dysentery, saber grass, insects, snakes and giant lizards. Eat nothing growing on the island, don’t drink its waters, and don’t approach the inhabitants.”

n Raymond Rachal, 72, of Alexandria was an Army squad leader of an amphibious track who faced all of those dangers. When asked to describe being in the first wave, the combat veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, he said, “That’s almost impossible to explain that. We had no incoming in on us at all. They expected us to come in on the north side, but we came in on the south side where there was a coral reef and a big lagoon. At 8 a.m. we hit the beach the first time. We were supposed to go in 85 feet and back up in our tracks. I followed my lieutenant about 800 feet to some railroad tracks. We went back to the ship and got another load of Marines and brought them in. “We dropped them off and picked up wounded. We hauled one more load of Marines, and then we started picking up Army,” Rachal remembers.

n C.T. Devore, 67, of Oakdale was in the Navy and piloted landing craft carrying Marines at Saipan. “There was heavy fire. We took in Marines and brought out the wounded. I made it through. I just thought it was a long time ago. I’m glad of it,” he said of the 50th anniversary of the assault on Saipan.

Leroy Bardwell (Our shipmate) of Pollock was in the Navy and also hauled Marines ashore at Saipan. “We made the landing at Saipan. My boat was sunk on the beach the second day, and I spent some time with the Marines before getting back to the ship.” He is a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

n Kelly Ward, 73, of Alexandria was a Navy lieutenant piloting an OS2U Kingfisher scout-observation airplane over Saipan. In his back seat was a Marine artillery observer who wanted him to fly directly into the battle. “We had a little disagreement over that,” he recalls.

The first wave got ashore without firing a shot. When the second wave came ashore, then they had artillery set up with range markers and blasted the amphibious tracks coming ashore. It was awful to see them being blown up with your friends aboard.

“The Marine observer was about to come out of his wig, and he wanted to do something about it. But we couldn’t determine where the artillery was coming from. It was hell,” Ward remembered.

He noted that the airplane he was flying had been the “eyes and ears of the fleet in the 1930s but with the advent of radar, it became obsolete.”

n Robert Cespiva of Pineville was on a Navy flagship at Saipan and went ashore with a 10-man team to establish communications between ship and shore. “It was a tough landing. There were bodies out there. The water wasn’t all that bad. The reefs were bad.”

n Chester Lachney, 69, of Marksville was a chief cook aboard the USS Neschanic, a tanker. But in the invasion of Saipan his battle station was on a 20-millimeter as gunner. He remembers the second loader being killed by a strafing Japanese Zero fighter.

Remembering one run by a Zero, he said, “We saw him when he opened the doors and dropped the bomb, but he missed. He hit the wrong target. He turned around, and we got him.” Asked what went through his mind as the Zero approached, Lachney said, “You think of hitting it, Partner”.

“Later, we did get hit by what they said was a 50-pound bomb. Half of the crew put out the fire, and the other half fought the enemy at battle stations,” he said. Lachney was in the Navy from 1941 to 1946. “I spent my good youth time over there,” he said.

n Max West, 68, of Alexandria was on the USS Natoma Bay, an aircraft carrier, at Saipan. He manned a five-inch gun and fired at approaching enemy kamikazes and Zeroes. “I was on the fantail. A kamikaze came in on us, and the 40-millimeter gun got him.” Asked if he was scared, he replied, “I was pretty young then. I got out six days past my 20th birthday. I would be scared now.”

There were several other central Louisianians involved, directly or indirectly, with Saipan.

n Charles Debate, 68, of Bunkie worked in the engine room aboard the USS Remey, the flagship of a destroyer group. The ship was in a fire support unit on D-1, the day before the assault.

n Joe Marler, 71, of Otis was aboard the USS Artic, a store ship, which delivered supplies to Saipan.

n John Harper of Pineville was on the USS Bunker Hill and loaded ordnance on aircraft and also flew. He said at one time “Tokyo Rose said we were sunk.”

n Harold Gauthier, 80, of Alexandria was a Navy Seabee who went to Saipan after D-Day and stayed there until the war ended. “We went ashore while the war was going on, but not on D-Day. We were the staging area for the invasion of Japan. We were there all the time the Japanese were trying to knock out that B-29 base.”

n William Culpepper - Retired Judge, ended the war as a Marine major in the 3rd Marine Division. “We were in reserve for Saipan and Tinian. We floated around on those troops ships for about a month. When we weren’t needed there, we landed at Guam. My battalion commander was killed on the third day, and I was a battalion commander for the remainder of the campaign.”

The concussion of gunfire off the USS California and other ships was so intense on the Leyte beachhead that Kelly Ward had to fly his scout up to 5,000 feet to get relief from the resulting turbulence. The scene was 50 years ago last Thursday.

Lawrence Morgan of Marksville, a rifleman with the 1st Cavalry Division, was happy about battleship and other naval gunfire across the 17-mile front. So were other central Louisianians who hit the beaches of Leyte 50 years ago to pave the way for Gen. Douglas MacArthur to make his famous return to the Philippines.

Morgan was among soldiers of four Army divisions that hit the beaches of the island deemed critical to taking back the Philippines. “There wasn’t much that could survive that bombardment,” Morgan remembers. “We had a good bit of resistance, but the Navy and air force bombardment did a pretty good job.”

To this day, Lawrence has a detailed map of Leyte, and he knows exactly where he was as his division fought the Japanese in the mountains for the next two months.

Robert Rachal of Lena was a weapons platoon sergeant in the 96th Infantry Division and was in the first wave to hit the beaches of Leyte. He remembers, “They softened up the beach so well the resistance was nearly nil.” He remembers having his unit’s sector of the beach secured within 12 hours of the beach assault.

It was the 96th’s first venture into combat, but Rachal said, “We were so well briefed, and we were prepared for anything except for being scared of being killed. We knew our jobs.”

The remainder of the campaign in Leyte was rough, but Rachal found Okinawa rougher. He was wounded there.

Jean Pharis, a former district attorney and Pineville city judge, remembers the heavy naval gunfire as Ward does. Aboard an LVT (landing vehicle, tracked) hauling troops ashore he remembers going near the big ships and “just about being blasted out of the water”.

“I remember how scared I was. I was frightened out of my skull,” Pharis said. After putting troops of the 96th ashore, he said, he continued to haul supplies ashore. He later went to Okinawa and ended his war service as an Armed Forces Radio announcer. He used his experience as a KALB announcer to get that assignment, he said.

Fred Collins, 73, of Pineville was assigned to a Marine artillery battalion whose 155-millimeter guns were to be in support of the Leyte land invasion. “The thing went smoothly,” he said. He said he got into a bit of trouble when he paraphrased MacArthur’s famous return message and said in a letter read by censors, “By the grace of God and a few Marines, I have returned.” It was the Marine addition that got him, he said.

(MacArthur’s message actually was, “People of the Philippines. I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil -- soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples.”)

J.L. Glass of Forest Hill was aboard the USS Pierce which delivered troops and their equipment to Leyte. He kept a log of the amphibious transport’s movements about the Pacific, and it shows the ship left for Leyte on Oct. 12. He said his ship could carry 2,000 troops and their equipment, and it also carried landing craft to get them ashore. The ship departed Leyte that day but was to come back again.

C.G. Clauss of Oakdale was a 17-year-old deck hand aboard the USS Calver, an amphibious personnel attack craft. Of his experiences in the Pacific, including Leyte, he said, “I saw no heroism, no parachuting behind enemy lines but just plain hard work and guts to get the job done.”

Will Fletcher of Montgomery wrote of his experiences on Leyte in a letter to his grandsons. Serving in an anti-aircraft unit, he wasn’t in the first waves ashore, “but the fighting was far from over when we landed near Tacloban. I was a sergeant then, chief of gun crew. Try to imagine setting up a 40-millimeter automatic cannon while being strafed. But we established gun emplacements and began the terrible work of war -- shooting down planes.”

Ralph Deason of Leesville served in the 168th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. He remembers capturing a Japanese 20-millimeter anti-aircraft gun on Leyte and then using it to shoot down a Japanese plane. To this day, he has a picture of that Japanese gun.

Alfred Bush of Alexandria is a Wisconsin native who came to Alexandria when his National Guard 32nd Infantry Division came here for the Louisiana Maneuvers. The division was in reserve for the Leyte invasion, but he remembers, “I never saw so many ships in my life.”

The division landed 20 miles down the coast later and to this day he has an embroidered tablecloth given him by a grateful Filipino.

Howard Gist Jr. was a communications officer on the USS West Virginia, a battleship. He talked to gunnery officers aboard other ships because his ship had the best radar used for target acquisition. The West Virginia was among those naval vessels softening up the beaches of Leyte. It would later join in the greatest naval battle of all time, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The ground troops found the invasion of Leyte fairly easy although the worst was yet to come for them. The Japanese strategy was to withdraw into the mountains, and it was not until December that the Americans, after heavy fighting, secured the island.

John Girlinghouse, 68, of Alexandria and Dallas Bertrand, 69, of Oberlin were assigned to the 77th Infantry Division, a New York Reserve unit, which was held in reserve for the Oct. 20 land incursion into Leyte. But they were not to get in on the action until MacArthur decided to insert the division on the other side of Leyte at Ormoc and squeeze the resisting Japanese forces from two sides.

After the land invasion of Leyte that was to last into December, the worst was also yet to come for the Navy. But Ward missed that. As the California was dispatched to meet one of three Japanese forces approaching Leyte, he was ordered to take his scout plane and go ashore.

He did and missed the naval battle. But he said he still heard one of the greatest noises he ever heard when a Japanese bomber snuck through defenses and hit a supply point near the LST on which he had found a place to sleep. “I could feel the heat of the explosion,” he remembers.

There were others from central Louisiana involved, to be sure. In fact, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, commander of the Army divisions that hit the beaches, had been a commander in the Louisiana Maneuvers.

The land invasion of Leyte was just a start in securing the Philippines and that battle lasted late into 1944. And then it was onward to other places as the campaign closed in on Japan.

Many involved in Leyte were poised for the actual land invasion of Japan when the war ended.

Howard Gist Jr. was a communications officer aboard the battleship USS West Virginia in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, so he was in a unique position to get the big picture.

John Stokes was a Navy Hellcat F6F fighter pilot based on the USS Wasp, and he thinks history has overlooked the efforts of his carrier group in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Max West was aboard the USS Natoma Bay, a light carrier called a “jeep carrier” by Navy veterans, and he is happy just to have lived and know he was a part of history.

Ernest Huber was aboard the USS Franklin, an aircraft carrier, and he knows what it is like on a ship that did well in the Battle of Leyte Gulf but did not fare so well later in the war.

The land invasion, supported by heavy naval gunfire, had gone well as it launched on Oct. 20, 1944. A few days later came the great naval battle.

The West Virginia and the California were in the American force that hammered one of three Japanese forces steaming toward Leyte in the days after the land invasion that featured Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s return to the Philippines. In fact, Gist remembers, the battleship fired all of its 93 armor-piercing rounds at the Japanese fleet led by Adm. Takeo Kurita and was in a real fix had another Japanese force led by Vice Adm. Shoji Nishamura kept coming at the Americans.

As it turned out, the only survivors of Kurita’s force, which included the two biggest and modern battleships in the world, were one cruiser and five destroyers.

Gist said the West Virginia had the best radar of the battleships, so it was used for target acquisition by the other ships. That means, he said, that he talked to gunnery officers aboard other ships during the battle. “I didn’t even see the other ships, but I was communicating with them and the gunnery officers. “I remember I was scared. We were able to cross the T where our ships were able to get broadside and fire at the Japanese fleet. My recollection is the Japanese battleships never fired a shot.” Among the Japanese battleships sunk were the Yamato and the Musashi, the world’s biggest and most modern.

In fact, Kurita had made the Yamato his flagship after the Atago, his initial flagship, was sunk by USS Darter, an American submarine.

Gist also was in on a message from Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, to Adm. William “Bull” Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, to return to Leyte to protect the abandoned light carriers among which was West’s Natoma Bay. Halsey had fallen for a Japanese decoy plot and chased to the north after carriers which had few airplanes.

Gist remembers hearing Nimitz telling Halsey in an un-coded message to return, and the message was abundantly clear. Some familiar with the Battle of Leyte Gulf say Halsey to his dying day refused to admit he had fallen for the Japanese decoy strategy.

The Wasp had participated in the covering for the land invasion and was headed back to Ulithi for re-supply when the naval battle broke out. Stokes is convinced that the Japanese admiral who was about to surprise the American fleet instead fled because he thought the carrier group including the Wasp was about to attack.

Stokes proudest moment had come just days before. Flying his Hellcat over the Leyte invasion force and taking pictures of the island trying to find Japanese positions, he suddenly spotted a Japanese Zero “who evidently was doing the same thing I was. He never saw me. I cut him in half and kept on taking pictures.

The Wasp was ordered to go for re-supply, he said, but then it was called back when the Japanese formations were spotted. “In my humble opinion,” Stokes said, “he thought he was being attacked by a larger carrier group.” The he was Nishamura, the Japanese admiral whose force was approaching and then turned around.

The Natoma Bay was among the light carriers left unprotected when the American 3rd Fleet went after a decoy Japanese force approaching from the north. Somehow, the light carriers’ airplanes managed to hold the Japanese at bay even though the light-skinned carriers were no match for the Japanese warships.

West manned a five-inch gun on the Natoma Bay, but he remembers that when Japanese Kamikaze (suicide) planes go close enough, he couldn’t fire. “There’s nothing you can do but stand by and wait,” he said. Japanese use of kamikazes apparently began in the Philippines.

The Natoma Bay was later hit by one but continued flight operations and had the damage repaired in about a day, West remembers.

The Franklin was also to go back to Ulithi for supplies when the battle broke out. According to a ship history provided by Huber, her warplanes instead were launched and played a major role in destroying the Japanese fleet.

(Editor’s note: This is one of a series of reports recalling America’s role in the events of World War II, 50 years ago this week. The author, a World War II veteran, is a former editor-in-chief of Cox Newspapers.)

The invasion of Leyte triggers the greatest naval battle of all time. When it is over, the Japanese Navy ceases to exist as an effective fighting force.

Incredible heroism by U.S. Seventh Fleet officers and men on little escort carriers and thin-skinned destroyers stops a powerful enemy fleet from creating havoc in Leyte Gulf.

The battle for Leyte Gulf is not a single, grand engagement, but consists of four major clashes Oct. 23-25 that range across almost 500,000 square miles of ocean. Some 26 Japanese warships, including three battleships, four aircraft carriers and 10 cruisers are sunk. American losses are three destroyers, two escort carriers and a light carrier.

When it became apparent that Leyte is to be invaded, the Japanese warlords activate the Sho (Victory) plan. It calls for the Combined Fleet to sally forth and annihilate the Americans, both on sea and land.

Another integral part of Sho is the willingness to sacrifice aircraft carriers to lure Adm. William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet away from guarding the entrances to Leyte Gulf.

The “bait” for Halsey is four aircraft carriers and two battleship carriers. The latter are hybrids, with a flight deck running out behind the forward superstructure of a battleship. Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa commands this expendable fleet, which is waiting to be spotted about 500 miles north of Leyte.

Adm. Takeo Kurita’s powerful center attack force sails from Brunei Bay, Borneo with 15 destroyers, 12 cruisers and five battleships, including the world’s largest fighting ships -- the Musashi and the Yamato -- 68,000-ton monsters, each with nine 18-inch guns.

His plan is to attack through San Bernadino Strait, which separates Luzon and Samar, north of Leyte.

Another Japanese task force, with two battleships, three heavy cruisers, a light cruiser and 11 destroyers, will try to force its way through the Surigao Strait, south of Leyte, and trap the Americans in the gulf in a giant pincers.

Kurita’s main force is spotted in the early hours of Oct. 23 by the U.S. submarines Darter and Dace. The Darter slams two torpedoes into the heavy cruiser Agato, Kurita’s flagship, which sinks, leaving the admiral struggling in the water. He finally is hauled aboard the Yamato.

In bang, bang fashion, the Darter hits the Takeo with two “fish,” knocking the heavy cruiser out of action, and the Dace fires four torpedoes into the cruiser Maya, which disappears in an enormous explosion.

Halsey’s carrier planes sight Kurita’s attack force on the morning of Oct. 24 in the Sibuyan Sea, west of San Bernadino Strait. As Halsey orders his fighters and bombers to strike the enemy, Japanese Navy planes based on Luzon wing toward the American carriers.

The U.S. light cruiser Princeton is hit with a 550-pound bomb that hurtles through three decks and starts a gasoline fire. Almost six hours later, there is a huge explosion in the ship’s torpedo storage room.

Steel debris rains down on the light cruiser Birmingham, which is alongside, her decks crowded with men. The carnage is hideous. The Birmingham backs off with 229 of her crew dead and 420 wounded. The Princeton is scuttled.

Halsey’s pilots riddle the super-battleship Musashi with 19 torpedoes and 17 bomb hits. She finally rolls over and sinks, taking 39 officers and 984 men with her.

The heavy cruiser Myoko is crippled and retired from the battle. Kurita’s battered fleet reverses course at 3 p.m. to seek respite from the incessant air attacks. Halsey is led to believe by his jubilant airmen that Kurita is retreating. He incorrectly assumed that Kurita’s force is too badly damaged to be a serious threat to those at Leyte Gulf.

Halsey dispatches a battle plan to task group commanders at 3:12 p.m., indicating that he will form Task Force 34 to engage enemy surface forces. Four battleships, two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and 14 destroyers will make up Task Force 34.

Halsey’s message also is received by Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Adm. Ernest J. King, commander of the U.S. Navy and Seventh Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Thomas C Kinkaid. All assume that Halsey will follow his plan, and order Task Force 34 to guard the San Bernadino Strait against an enemy surface attack.

However at 4:40 p.m., Ozawa’s decoy force is sighted. “Bull” Halsey swallows the bait and sails north, taking everything with him. Frequently referred to as the “Battle of Bull’s Run,” this action will be argued by naval historians for decades. Hanson Baldwin of The New York Times later writes, “On such misunderstandings rest the course of history and the fate of nations.”

Free of air attacks for more than an hour and undetected by American reconnaissance, Kurita turns his ships around and steams east toward the now unguarded San Bernadino Strait. Meanwhile, the southern attack force is sighted plowing toward Surigao Strait on the morning of Oct. 24. At 1:35 p.m., Kinkaid advises his task forces to prepare for a night surface attack on Leyte Gulf through Surigao Strait.

As the Japanese ships move single-file into the strait, they are attacked by 39 PT boats and a host of destroyers. Waiting on the eastern side of the strait are the battleships Mississippi, Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, California and Pennsylvania. The six battleships “cross the T” on the Japanese, bringing their broadside to bear on the enemy column. It is a classic naval tactic dating from 17th century sailing days.

By the time it is over, two enemy battleships, two cruisers and five destroyers are sunk or mortally wounded.

As American seamen are celebrating their victory, all hell breaks loose off Samar, immediately north of Leyte. Kurita’s capital ships are through San Bernadino Strait on the morning of Oct. 25, and attacking Rear Adm. Clifton A Sprague’s six escort carriers.

Dye-marked shells from Japanese battleships and cruisers send up red, yellow and purple splashes as they straddle the little vessels and hurl fragments onto their decks. One sailor shouts, “My God, they’re firing at us in Technicolor.”

Sprague launches his planes to attack the enemy dreadnoughts. Fighters and torpedo bombers soar from the flight decks of 12 other little flattops on station between the onrushing Japanese and Leyte Gulf.

Destroyers Johnston, Hoel and Heermann charge the Japanese ships, firing spreads of torpedoes and peppering enemy decks with five-inch guns.

Riddled by major caliber hits, the burning Hoel sinks at 8:55 a.m. The Johnston, crushed by scores of Japanese shells, goes down an hour later. The destroyer-escort Samuel B. Roberts is ripped apart like a tin can and plunges out of sight. The slow baby carriers are fish-tailing to escape enemy salvos, but the Gambier Bay runs out of luck. Hit and dead in the water, she sinks at 9 a.m. Some of her crew are in the water almost 40 hours, fighting sharks. The Gambier Bay is the only U.S. carrier in World War II to be sunk by naval gunfire. Some 115 jeep carrier planes also are lost.

At 11 a.m., the baby flattop St. Lo is mortally wounded in the first planned kamikaze attack of the war. A Japanese plane smashes through the flight deck and into the bombs and torpedoes stored below. The St. Lo blows up and sinks 30 minutes later.

As American seamen watch in amazement, Kurita, on the verge of a monumental victory, breaks off the action at 9:11 a.m., and turns his ships north, ending the sea battle off Samar. Naval historians say that the intensity and gallantry of the U.S. aircraft and destroyer attacks led Kurita to believe that he was engaging the big carriers of the Third Fleet, and that Halsey’s powerful forces were lurking nearby. Kurita’s fleet also is badly stung by the swarming Americans. Two cruisers are sunk and a third badly damaged.

Kinkaid’s desperate please for help and Nimitz’s message to Halsey asking, “Where is, repeat, where is Task Force 34? The whole world wonders,” finally turn Halsey back south.

The admiral’s foray to the north has been rewarding. His forces sink the four Japanese sacrificial carriers, including the Zuikaku, the last surviving carrier that took part in the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

At 12:26 p.m., Oct. 25, Halsey sends the following to Nimitz, Kinkaid and Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “It can be announced with assurance that the Japanese Navy has been beaten, routed and broken by the Third and Seventh Fleets.”

After the war, Japanese Naval Minister Mitsumasa Yonai said, “Our defeat at Leyte was tantamount to the loss of the Philippines. When you took the Philippines, that was the end of our resources.”

Editor’s note: This is one of a series of reports recalling America’s role in the events of World War II - 50 years ago this week. (Oct. 23, 1994) The author, a World War II veteran, is a former editor-in-chief of Cox Newspapers. At the time of the action described here, he was a 19-year-old Navy radioman involved in the greatest naval battle of all time. Here is his account of what he heard and saw.

The sounds are what I remember the most about Leyte Gulf. There was fear, too, but that has faded. The sounds linger, returning in full crescendo every Fourth of July.

My ship, the Rocky Mount, a floating amphibious command center, entered the gulf in the last hour of Oct. 19, 1944. The night was pitch black. The darkness was interrupted now and again by tracer shells streaking across the sky.

Reveille sounded at 2:30 a.m., Oct. 20 -- the day chosen for the invasion of Leyte and Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s promised return to the Philippines. We went to general quarters at 4 a.m. and manned our battle stations.

At 6:30 a.m., the pre-invasion bombardment began with a roar. Flame and smoke wreathed the warships as salvo after salvo rained death and destruction on Leyte.

Rolling thunder followed each brilliant burst of flame. The leading instruments in this percussion symphony were the Seventh Fleet battleships and cruisers that had arrived on station several days earlier.

The 14- and 16-inch guns of the battle-wagons created great ear-shattering thunder claps as their shells sailed overhead like freight trains. You could feel the concussion. Sleek destroyers raced toward the beach and turned broadside to unload their five-inch shells, which went bang, bang, bang. The 10-millimeter cannons had a distinctive pop, pop, pop, while the twin 40s pounded out a pom-pom rhythm Everyone’s head seemed to come up at the whooosh sound made by clusters of rockets fired from LCI gun-boats. At least mine did.

I later read that more than 10,000 of the 4.5-inch rockets were launched within 15 minutes.

Shrieking Navy dive bombers added yet another tone to this deadly orchestration. As the planes pulled up, the exploding bombs seemed to produce their own applause. Mixed in was the nervous chatter of 50-caliber machine guns.

In the 30 minutes or so before the first wave of landing craft would charge across 5,000 yards of open water to the Leyte beaches, there was not a millisecond of silence. It was like a non-stop grand finale at an Independence Day fireworks show. An Army captain turned to me and said, “Magnificent, absolutely magnificent!”

Almost the last job of my outfit -- Amphibious Group Six -- was to deliver to Leyte’s sandy shore the some 16,000 men of the 96th Infantry Division, who had sweated in the holds of our transports for weeks.

They did not go alone. Some 45,000 comrades from the First Cavalry and 7th and 24th Divisions -- all part of the U.S. Sixth Army -- also stormed the beaches along a 20-mile section of Leyte’s east coast.

The invaders met only light opposition on the beaches -- mostly mortar and sniper fire. In the early afternoon, MacArthur and Philippine President Sergio Osmena went ashore, fulfilling MacArthur’s promise, “I shall return,” made in the dark days of early 1942.

The photograph taken of the two old comrades wading ashore at Leyte with their trousers wet up to their knees became one of the most famous of the war, and has been published thousands of times.

About the time MacArthur was delivering his famous “I have returned” speech, we copied the following: “Personal from the President for General MacArthur, signed Roosevelt. The whole American nation today exults at the news that the gallant men under your command have landed on Philippine soil. “I know well what this means to you. I know what it cost you to obey my order that you leave Corregidor in February, 1942, and proceed to Australia. Since then you have planned and worked and fought with whole-souled devotion for the day when you would return with powerful forces to the Philippine Islands. “That day has come. You have the nation’s gratitude and the nation’s prayers for success as you and your men fight your way back to Bataan.”

One of the first Navy casualties of the operation happened in front of me that same afternoon. The Rocky Mount was on station when a low-flying plane came out of nowhere and put a torpedo into the nearby light cruiser Honolulu. It was a hell of a surprise. We thought the plane was one of our own.

The explosion ripped a big hole in the ship and killed about 60 officers and men. I saw the ship list, and after about 15 minutes limp toward the island. Late that night, we copied a message to the Honolulu from Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey, commander of the mighty Third Fleet. It said, “Tough luck to a tough ship -- Halsey and Company.”

Several days after the landings, I was operating the TBS (talk between ships) on the flag bridge. When my watch ended, a quartermaster I knew took me back to flag plot, the tactical control center of our amphibious command ship.

There was a giant map on a table. The map displayed the advance of a powerful Japanese battle fleet toward Leyte Gulf. It did not take long for the “scuttlebutt” to sweep the ship.

The enemy force steamed from Lingga Roads off Singapore and then split into two groups after refueling at Brunei Bay, Borneo. In the early hours of Oct. 23, two American submarines with the marvelously alliterative names of Darter and Dace reported spotting the southernmost Japanese task force in the narrow Palawan Passage.

The subs sank two enemy heavy cruisers and knocked a third out of action, drawing first blood in the Battle for Leyte Gulf, the greatest sea fight in history.

Back in the gulf, it wasn’t panic city, but a lot of people were scared. In the early hours of Oct. 24, coding was ignored and messages were sent in plain language. One to Halsey from Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid, Seventh Fleet commander, said, “Need urgent strike at once. Old BBs (battleships) running low on AP armor piercing) ammunition.”

The pre-war Seventh Fleet battleships had come to Leyte to bombard enemy land positions, not to engage in a surface battle. The Seventh Fleet was called MacArthur’s Navy because it had been formed to carry his soldiers to many beaches in the island-hopping campaigns. Six old battleships, five of which had risen from the mud bottom of Pearl Harbor, were assigned to the Seventh Fleet, along with coveys of little escort aircraft carriers.

We always thought of the Third and Fifth Fleets with their new fast battleships and big fleet carriers as the fighting Navy, but those feelings would change after Leyte.

My time in Leyte Gulf was growing short. There was a bustle of activity at noon, Oct. 24, as the Rocky Mount prepared to get under way. I didn’t know it at the time, but Rear Adm. Forrest B. Royal, commander of Phib. Group Six, was ordered to take the valuable transport and cargo ships out of the gulf, where, with their thin skins, they would have been easy prey for the enemy.

I was on the flag bridge when the normally low-key Royal looked down on the navigation bridge and yelled at the ship’s captain, “God-dammit, captain, when I said under way at 1400 hours (2 p.m.) I meant 1400 hours. Do you understand me, sir?”

To the delight of the enlisted men, Capt. S.F. Patten stood bolt upright at attention throughout Royal’s tirade. I figured someone was doing the same thing to the admiral

With most of us nervous as hell, we led the convoy of empty transports into the open sea. Our escorts were three destroyers and three destroyer mine-sweepers. Within several hours, the destroyers were ordered back to Leyte Gulf at flank speed.

I watched on deck as the tough little ships turned together in three great arcs marked by their churning wakes, and raced back to the gulf. Their departure was followed by a glorious South Seas sunset, but we felt vulnerable and terribly alone.

In the western reaches of the Pacific, American land, sea and air forces were caught up in momentous clashes that all but decided the outcome of the war against Japan. Saipan, Guam and the Philippine Sea would become household words.

Normandy was only one site where world-historic battles took place in the crucial month of June 1944. At the same time, the U.S. emerged victorious from pivotal and closely interwoven clashes in the Pacific that assured the defeat of the Japanese empire.

In the course of 1943, the Allies had seized the initiative and achieved a growing advantage over Japan. The Gilbert and Marshall Islands had been conquered, and the Japanese bastions at Truk and Rabaul had been neutralized by encirclement. By mid-a944, resurgent U.S. military power was such that it was preparing to carry the war to the Japanese home islands.

The long-awaited U.S. invasion of the Mariana Islands promised to open up the whole of the western Pacific to further attack and deprive Japan of position and time that it could not afford to lose. Thwarting Operation Forager, as the American campaign was code-named, would be Japan’s last chance to forestall defeat.

Principal objectives were the islands of Guam, Saipan and Tinian. Guam, a pre-war U.S. territory with excellent airfields and a good harbor, was the main target. Next in importance was Tinian, from which Japan itself could be bombed. However, since Tinian was within reach of artillery on Saipan, the latter island had to fall first.

The Marianas invasion force consisted of an amphibious army of 127,000 assault and 30,000 garrison troops, more than 600 U.S. Fifth Fleet ships, and a thousand carrier-based and U.S. Seventh Air Force aircraft. For sheer size, Forager was unprecedented among Pacific amphibious operations. Main battle units included:

For Saipan-Tinian, V Amphibious Corps: Marines--2nd and 4th divisions; 1st Bn., 29th Regt.; V Amphibious Corps Reconnaissance Bn.; 2nd, 5th, 10th Amphibious Tractor Bns. Army--27th Infantry Div.; 762nd, 766th Tank Bns.; 145th, 225th Field Artillery Bns., XXIV Corps; 534th, 715th, 773rd Amphibian Tractor Bns.; 708th Amphibian Tank Bn.

For Guam, III Amphibious Corps: Marines--3rd Div.; 1st Provisional Brigade; 3rd, 4th Amphibious Tractor Bns.; 1st Armored Amphibian (Tank) Bn; 1st, 7th 155mm Artillery Bns. Army--77th Infantry Div.; 706 Tank Bn.

Forager commenced on June 12, 1944. The famous U.S. fast carrier force designated Task Force 58 moved in and destroyed hundreds of Japanese aircraft, securing air supremacy over the Marianas. Meanwhile, battleships and cruisers pounded the Saipan invasion beaches.

The battle promised to be long and difficult: Saipan was the fulcrum of Japanese defenses in the western Pacific. The island covered some 72 square miles of jungle and mountainous terrain and was defended by about 31, 600 men of the Japanese 32nd Army.

V Amphibious Corps landings began on June 15 on a six-mile front in the face of fierce Japanese fire. By evening, 20,000 2nd and 4th Division Marines were ashore, but their losses were a harrowing 2,500 killed and wounded in action.

During the night, Japanese infantry, with strong tank support, made heavy suicide attacks against the U.S. beachhead. The Marines beat off the charges and inflicted severe losses on the enemy, including more than 700 men killed and 30 tanks destroyed.

By June 22, the 27th Infantry Division had landed and cleared southern Saipan. Thereafter, the V Amphibious Corps’ 77,400 Marines, GIs and attached seamen advanced line abreast up the length of the island, resisted furiously at every turn by the dug-in Japanese.

Mount Tapotchau, from which the Japanese looked down on the U.S. invasion forces, fell on June 27 to the 2nd Marine Division. The main line of enemy resistance collapsed on June 30. The island’s capital, Garapan, fell two days later after costly street-fighting.

However, as Japanese strength began to wane and they were hemmed in on the island’s northern end, the enemy concentrated their surviving forces for one final effort to drive the Americans back into the sea. The push came on July 7, with the full weight of the Banzai charge crashing into the 27th Division.

“When they hit us there were so many of them we couldn’t shoot fast enough,” recalled Tech. Sgt. Frederick Stiltz of the 1st Bn., 105th Infantry. “We were shooting them at 15 or 20 yards. [Our perimeter] was about 50 yards deep and 100 yards across. Artillery was breaking them up but some of the artillery fell short and hit among us. We must have killed 300 or 400 Japs; they were piled around us.”

It was the most devastating such counterattack of the entire war. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Japanese, amply fueled with sake, started out. When the attack was broken up two days later, more than 4,300 Japanese dead were counted behind American lines.

Though the failed attack caused serious U.S. casualties--about 1,500 GIs and Marines KIA and WIA--it sapped the remaining Japanese of strength, and Saipan was secured on July 9. Total U.S. losses in the four week battle--the most of any campaign in the Pacific to date -- were grievous: 16,686, including 3,143 KIA, 13,208 WIA, and 335 missing.

In contrast, the Japanese garrison was annihilated: only 1,810 prisoners were taken during the battle. In the months of “mopping-up” that followed, U.S. patrols killed or captured hundreds more defenders.

Guam, more than 100 miles south of Saipan, was also to have been assaulted in mid-June, three days after Saipan was invaded. But when Saipan turned out to be tougher than expected, the attack on Guam was held up.

More than three times larger than Saipan, Guam measured 228 square miles and was defended by 18,500 Japanese. Because of the long delay prior to the actual attack, Guam was on the receiving end of the longest pre-invasion naval and air bombardment of any amphibious operation during the war.

Two separate landing were made on July 21. The 3rd Marine Division, which had been aboard transports for seven weeks, led the way north of Apra Harbor. The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade and one regiment of the 77th Infantry Division landed south of the harbor. About 25,000 troops supported by tanks and artillery were ashore by nightfall.

Thereafter, the battle for Guam was island-fighting at its worst. For four dogged days, the bitter battle for the beachhead raged. The Marines and GIs fought their way forward inch by inch across successive ridges, suffering heavily from combat and exhaustion.

When the agonizing fighting moved inland to higher jungle-covered ground, matters became only more difficult. The Japanese holed up in dark ravines and higher ground beyond, and their tanks, mortars, and artillery took a heavy toll of Americans.

On the night of July 25, the Japanese counterattacked en masse. Marine Sgt. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., recalled that the enemy charged “throwing grenades and howling ‘Banzai-ai!’ like a pack of wild animals .... All along the line shells lit up the night like the Fourth of July.”

About 5,000 Japanese -- many drunk, some armed only with baseball bats or crude spears -- made the suicide charge. While overrun in many places and sorely pressed, the U.S. line held. By daylight, 3,500 enemy troops had been killed, and it was clear that the Banzai attack had failed. U.S. units lost about a thousand men in the attack.

Despite their terrible losses, organized Japanese resistance did not end until August 11. Eventually, the entire enemy garrison was killed or captured. Small numbers of enemy held out in the hills--in some cases, for decades after the war had ended.

U.S. casualties on land, at sea and in the air ran to 7,800, of whom 2,124 were dead and missing and 5,676 WIA. The casualty breakdown among services was 245 sailors, 839 soldiers and 6,716 Marines dead or disabled.

Meanwhile, with Saipan secure and U.S. forces on Guam, Marines of the 4th Division and two regiments of the 2nd Division landed on Tinian’s high, rocky coastline shortly after sunrise on July 24.

Tinian, which lay only 3½ miles north of Saipan, was 12½ miles long and about five miles at its widest. It was defended by 8,000 enemy troops.

During the landings, Japanese coastal artillery raked the naval gunfire support group. Battleship Colorado was hit 22 times and destroyer Norman Scott six times. Sixty two sailors were killed and 245 wounded before the enemy guns were silenced.

Next day, the balance of the 2nd Division came ashore and together the two Marine Divisions stormed over the island. Furious though the fighting on Tinian was, however, it was largely over within nine days.

U.S. losses were 328 KIA and 1,571 WIA. In contrast, the Japanese garrison was wiped out; only a handful surrendered. In the three months after Tinian’s fall, another 542 enemy troops were killed by U.S. patrols.

The U.S. capture of the southern Marianas--particularly of Saipan--was a watershed in the Pacific war. After the decisive battle for Saipan, the Japanese leadership realized they had no chance of avoiding defeat. The shock waves reached all the way to Japan itself, toppling Prime Minister Hideki Tojo’s military government from power.

Guam, Saipan and Tinian all became critical forward bases for the burgeoning U.S. Pacific Fleet naval and amphibious forces. But most important, the conquered islands in the Marianas became major air bases from which newly developed long-range strategic bombers, the B-29s, could reach the Japanese home islands.

Nonetheless, the price of victory in the Marianas was high. Total U.S. losses during the summer-long campaign amounted to about 24,000 dead and wounded, including 4,500 U.S. soldiers, 19,300 Marines and 500 sailors and airmen. In exchange, more than 60,000 Japanese were killed or captured.

While island-fighting was under way in Saipan, a huge battle force of the U.S. Fifth Fleet steamed west, screening the Marianas from expected Japanese naval and air attacks. When the enemy fleet was discovered in the Philippine Sea on June 18, 1944, the war’s greatest battle between aircraft carriers commenced.

TF 58, under Adm. Marc Mitscher and comprising 15 carriers, 7 battleships, 21 cruisers and 69 destroyers, rushed forward. The Japanese had 9 carriers, 5 battleships and more cruisers than the U.S. fleet. In the air, in all categories except float planes, the Japanese were outnumbered by two to one.

On June 19, the Japanese struck, launching four air attacks with 417 planes. Their approach was detected by radar and 315 enemy planes were shot down by U.S. fighters and anti-aircraft fire. Two U.S. carriers, Wasp and Bunker Hill, were damaged. Meanwhile, U.S. submarines sank two enemy carriers--Shokaku and Taiho.

Next day, June 20, TF 58 fliers pushed their planes beyond maximum range to strike back at the Japanese fleet. Heavy resistance was met, but another enemy flat-top, Hiyo, was sunk and four more Japanese carriers damaged. Two-thirds of their remaining aircraft were shot down and a battleship and cruiser crippled.

With all but 35 of their 430 carrier planes and 3,500 seamen lost in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Japanese fleet withdrew. U.S. losses during the far ranging action were 16 pilots, 33 air crew and about 100 planes. The one-sided slaughter became popularly known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”

Despite the outcome, Capt. Arleigh Burke believed “we could have gotten the whole outfit! Nobody could have gotten away if we had done what we wanted to.”

(Landing craft mass off Saipan prior to the American invasion on June 15, 1944. There will be no heads of state or lines of satellite dishes and TV Trucks for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. A $4.5 million American Memorial park will mark the anniversary.)

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) - President Clinton won’t be there. Nor will any other heads of state, or lines of satellite dishes and TV trucks.

But for the 50th anniversary of D-Day in Saipan - a fierce, three week battle that helped end the war in the Pacific - there will finally be a fitting memorial.

“The trees will have to come later,” Froilan C. Tenorio, governor of this U.S. commonwealth in the Northern Mariana Islands, said as he spread a stack of blueprints out on a table in his office. “But, after all these years, I think that we are finally going to have something.”

That something is American Memorial park, a $4.5 million project Saipan’s leaders have mulled over for years, but never got around to building until Tenorio gave the plan a push after he took office in January.

Construction workers have been working around the clock for three weeks to prepare for Wednesday’s anniversary, pouring concrete for the park’s amphitheater, setting up fairgrounds and erecting a wall listing the names of thousands of Americans who died in the assault on Saipan.

Saipan is the largest island in the Marianas chain, about 3,800 miles west of Honolulu and 1,600 miles south of Tokyo. It was at the fringes of the Japanese empire during World War II, but today is under U.S. jurisdiction.

D-Day on Saipan came early on June 15, 1944, when the Marines’ 2nd and 4th divisions landed on its southwestern beaches under heavy fire from Japanese artillery and anti-boat guns.

By nightfall, more than 1,500 Americans had died. Before the island was secured on July 9, 71,034 U.S. troops would come ashore, and 3,100 would die along with 300 Chamorro natives and almost all of the 30,000 Japanese defenders.

It was a crucial victory for American, putting Japan’s main islands within reach of its B-29 bombers.

Saipan became the take-off point for devastating firebomb raids on Tokyo and other major Japanese cities.

It was from the neighboring island of Tinian that the A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were launched.

The battles for Saipan, Guam and Tinian were hard-fought and bloody, but capturing the Pacific islands gave the U.S. a much-needed base for air attacks against Japan. -- Story by SSgt. Douglas Ide

ON the morning of June 15, 1944, the first U.S. landing boats and amphibious tanks and tractors, loaded with Marines, hit the southern shore of Saipan island, some 1,300 miles southeast of Tokyo. The next day, elements of the Army's 27th Infantry Division landed on Saipan to join the fight.

The battle for Saipan, and later Tinian and Guam, captured Japan's complete attention. If the Americans were to take the island they would not only disrupt the Japanese supply lines, but would gain a valuable staging base from which to launch U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 bombers against the Japanese mainland. Even the radio in Tokyo reported that the war in the Pacific had reached "a very serious stage."

The assault on Saipan ran into problems from the outset. Four days of bombing leading up to the landings produced unimpressive results: Many of the Japanese gun positions remained intact, and their mortar and artillery fire disabled many of the American amphibious tractors as they approached shore.

Still, some 20,000 Marines made it to the beaches that first day and dug in well enough to repel a massive Japanese counterattack that night. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, a scene that would replay itself throughout the siege. The taking of Saipan would be costly.

Two regiments of the Army's 27th Inf. Div. landed on the island the next day, joining the 2nd and 4th Marine divisions for the push up the island.

After eight days of heavy fighting, Marine Lt. Gen. Holland "Howlin' Mad" Smith, overall commander of the ground forces, decided on an island-wide thrust north. The 2nd Marine Div. took the left flank, the 4th took the right. The 27th Inf. Div. regiments were assigned the center of the front.

While the Marines on both sides attacked aggressively, Army Maj. Gen. Ralph Smith moved his soldiers more deliberately, hoping to keep casualties to a minimum. His tactics caused the middle of the line to sag, and eventually stall, angering the Marine commander.

On June 24, when the 27th ID's advance again stalled, Lt. Gen. Smith convinced his superior, Adm. Raymond Spruance, commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, to relieve the Army's Smith. With a new commander, the soldiers began to keep pace with the Marines, and by July 6 Garapan and the seaplane base at Tanapag Harbor were overrun.

But the land was taken at a high price. American casualties in the first two weeks were reported as 1,474 killed, 7,400 wounded and 878 missing. Nearly 2,000 more Americans died before the island siege ended, and another 6,000 were wounded. Many perished during a last, suicidal Japanese counterattack on July 7.

Japanese Lt. Gen. Yoshitsugu Saito, commander of the island's defenders, knew all was lost when Garapan and Tanapag Harbor fell. U.S. Army and Marine troops had pushed what was left of his forces to the northern tip of the island.

Dirty and weary from 23 days of intense fighting, Saito ate canned crab, drank sake, walked to a flat rock and sat down. Then, after telling his army, "I advance to seek out the enemy. Follow me," he plunged his samurai sword into his stomach and had his adjutant shoot him in the back of the head.

His army, and many civilian men, women and children, followed his lead, first making one last charge at the advancing Americans. When that failed, many committed suicide by leaping from the cliffs at Marpi Point.

The 27th Inf. Div. took the brunt of the initial suicide attack. Some 2,000 to 3,000 Japanese troops rushed screaming into the American lines, overwhelming the two regiments. One soldier who survived the onslaught likened it to a Hollywood cattle stampede, saying that the Japanese just kept coming. As bodies mounted, both sides had to clear away some of the dead to continue with their mission. When it was over, more than 4,300 dead Japanese were counted on the beaches at Tanapag.

Saipan became the staging base for the attack on nearby Tinian, three-and-a-half miles south. Tinian was taken with relative ease, falling in one week with some 1,800 American casualties. A prize catch, Tinian boasted three airfields and a fourth under construction. It became an important operational base for the rest of the Pacific war. The B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" would fly from Tinian to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan.

Meanwhile, the assault on Guam began on July 21, after Spruance was assured that Saipan would fall. The Army's 77th Inf. Div. was assigned to participate. Attacking alongside the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, the soldiers moved northwest across the island. Guam fell on Aug. 10 at a cost of 7,000 American casualties. After the battle for Guam, Marine Maj. Gen. Roy Geiger praised the efforts of the 77th Inf. Div. soldiers, easing the strained relations that had developed between the two services in the Pacific.

The capture of Saipan, Tinian and Guam, overshadowed by the Allied invasion of Europe, proved to be the back breaker in the Pacific war. Though mostly a Navy and Marine operation, soldiers helped capture the strategically important islands, speeding a victory over Japan.