Battle of Saipan

The USS England’s Hedgehog Weapons System

In the Spring of 1944, Japanese Admiral Soemu Toyoda assembled a large fleet of warships at Tawi-Tawi in the southern Philippine Islands. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Battle of Sibuyan Sea

In warfare, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in the fall of 1944 the empire of Japan found itself in precisely that predicament. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Saipan: A Crucial Foothold in the Marianas

On June 10, 1944, as his troop transport churned through the Pacific toward the Japanese-held island of Saipan, Pharmacist’s Mate First Class Stan Bowen wrote a letter to his sweetheart, Marge McCann. Read more

Battle of Saipan

B-29 Superfortress: The Plane That Bombed Japan Into Submission

As the Japanese delegation stood on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, preparing to sign the documents that ended World War II, a large formation of Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers swooped low over Tokyo Bay as a reminder of the terrible destruction that had befallen their nation and turned Japan’s cities into ruins. Read more

Battle of Saipan

U.S. Marine’s Legacy of Valor

By Dick Camp (Colonel, USMC, Retired)

The war in the Pacific was a bloody, protracted struggle between the Empire of Japan and the United States and her allies. Read more

Battle of Saipan

The 93rd Infantry Division: The African-American Soldiers in the Pacific

On August 2, 1945, two weeks prior to Japan’s surrender, the highest ranking Japanese officer captured during the war in the Pacific was taken on the island of Morotai, Dutch New Guinea. Read more

Battle of Saipan

The Battle of Iwo Jima: Red Sun, Black Sand

No foreign army in the 5,000-year history of Japan had ever successfully conquered Japanese territory. In late 1944, American war planners were about to challenge that statistic on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Banzai

By Colonel Dick Camp (USMC, Ret.)

In the summer of 1944, the 5th Amphibious Corps under Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. Read more

Battle of Saipan

The Few, the Proud, the Black Marines in World War II

Prior to the summer of 1941, the United States Marine Corps did not want them. The Navy barely tolerated them in restricted capacities as cooks, waiters, servants for officers, and dockside stevedores. Read more

Battle of Saipan

The USS England and the Invasion of the South Pacific

From his naval base at Tawi Tawi in the southern Philippines, Japanese Admiral Soemu Toyoda anxiously perused intelligence reports that might provide a clue to the objective of the next seaborne South Pacific invasion by American military in the spring of 1944. Read more

Battle of Saipan

The U.S. 3rd, 5th, and 4th Marine Divisions: Uncommon Valor at Iwo Jima

“You know,” said Marine Maj. Gen. Clifton B. Cates to a war correspondent on the eve of Operation Detachment, the invasion of Iwo Jima, “if I knew the name of the man on the extreme right of the right-hand squad of the right-hand company of the right-hand battalion, I’d recommend him for a medal before we go in.” Read more

Battle of Saipan

Saipan’s Maritime Heritage Trail

Saipan’s shallow, tropical lagoons are a veritable waterpark for World War II enthusiasts who do not mind getting wet. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Duel to the Death on Saipan

On board one of the transports headed for the island of Saipan in early June 1944, a battalion surgeon gave a group of Marines a lecture on what they could expect when they reached their destination. Read more

Battle of Saipan

How Capitalism Won WWII: This Is Capitalism and Expert Rob Citino Explain

“We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.” Read more

Battle of Saipan

Liberating Guam

Above all, the island was defendable. From Ritidian Point in the north to the extreme southern coastline, Guam is 34 miles long, made in an irregular shape covering 228 square miles, the largest of all Pacific islands between Japan and New Guinea. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Combat Horror On Saipan

In the high summer of 1944, the United States was coiling a massive fist in the Central Pacific aimed directly at the Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Faces of the U.S. Marine Corps

Noted chronicler of the Pacific Theater Eric Hammel recently spent three years sorting, scanning, cleaning, selecting, and captioning United States Marine Corps World War II photos for six pictorial books. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Military Book Reviews: George S. Patton and Erwin Rommel

American General George S. Patton, Jr., and German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel both demonstrated the masterful employment of armored forces in many World War II military campaigns. Read more

Battle of Saipan

The Costly Kyushu Invasion of Operation Olympic?

During the more than half a century since the end of World War II, there has been much speculation about what would have happened if President Harry Truman had not dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan had actually taken place. Read more

Battle of Saipan

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima: The Story of the Photo

By Chris McGowan

Atop 550-foot Suribachi Yama, the volcano at the southwest tip of Iwo Jima, Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Division, hoist the Stars and Stripes, signaling the capture of this key position. Read more