LIBERATION: Marines in the Recapture of Guam by Cyril J. O'Brien
Beginning of the End
On 4 August, the new frontlines and scheme of
maneuver were being set up to keep pressure on General Obata and his
holdouts, and make a place for General Shepherd and his brigade. During
the afternoon, the brigade reached its northern assembly area and
General Shepherd set up his CP near San Antonio. In the final advance
north, the brigade would be on the left with its inland flank within a
mile of the western beaches. The 3d Division would be in the center
deploying its units on a three-regiment front which would swerve to the
east to take in the whole northern end of the island and as well support
the 77th Division.
The Japanese now faced an overwhelming number of
attack forces. And there would be plenty of help from the sea and from
the air. General Bruce's soldiers made the principal corps drive to
destroy the remaining Japanese and attacked Mount Santa Rosa. Priority
of fires of corps artillery, air support, and ships gunfire was now
given to the Army. These new arrangements were to take effect on 7
August.
Making new strides to end the campaign, the 3d and
21st Marines progressed handily but the 9th Marines kept running into
dense jungle that was such a tangled mess that tanks passed each other
15 feet apart without knowing the other was there. The division
accelerated its advance in battalion columns. On 6 August, it had
progressed 5,000 yards along the road to Ritidian Point, the end of the
island and the end of the battle for Guam. As that evening fell, the 3d
Division was in visual contact with the 77th Infantry Division, wherever
the all-encompassing jungle allowed.
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During the night of 2-3 August, U.S. artillery delivered many rounds of
harassing and interdiction fire on the enemy in the north of Guam. Here,
a blinding flash from a Long Tom lights up the dark Guam night as it
joins other guns in the shelling. Department of Defense Photo (USMC)
93340
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Captured by 1st Brigade Marines, rebuilt by Marine engineers, and in
full-scale operation, the Orote Peninsula airstrip is home to Marine
Aircraft Group 21 and its Marine Fighter Squadrons 217, 225, and 321,
and Marine Night Fighter Squadron 534. Taxiing down the strip are Vought
F4U Corsair fighters, while parked off the runway are Grumann F6F
Hellcats. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92396
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Meanwhile, heavy Seventh Air Force bombing as well as
artillery and naval shelling of enemy areas had been going on for days.
Night fighters were now assigned to support the advance, so even
darkness afforded the Japanese no protection. By that same 6 August, the
defense line that General Obata had set across Guam had been shattered
and overrun. Only isolated pockets now existed before Santa Rosa.
No American commander could say on 7 August when the
fight for Guam would be over. General Bruce in his attack first to Yigo
and then Santa Rosa would have a relatively fresh regiment, the 306th,
which had come up from the south where it had patrolled with the
brigade. It was in contact with the 9th Marines on the division
boundary. Colonel Douglas C. McNair, 77th Division chief of staff, was
there, too, seeking a site for a division CP and was killed by a sniper.
Colonel McNair's father, Lieutenant General Leslie J. McNair, was killed
in France 12 days earlier during an American bombing raid.
The attack on Mount Santa Rosa began at noon, 7
August. Behind the rumble of artillery and rattle of tanks, answered in
kind by the enemy, the 77th took Yigo, the door to Santa Rosa, and
continued General Bruce's wheeling maneuver. Bulldozers blazed trails,
and tanks and infantry overran machine gun positions. The 77th was dug
into positions on the night of 7-8 August ready for the final attack on
the mountain. The expected big Japanese counterattack still did not
come. The rapid advance of the Americans accompanied by heavy artillery
support likely forestalled that forelorn hope.
Two regiments, the 305th and 307th, proceeded rapidly
on 8 August. By 1240, the northern half of Mount Santa Rosa was in
American hands, and the troops moved to secure the rest of the mountain.
By 1440 the Army had reached the cliffs by the sea and could look right
down to the ocean. The 306th infantry had also completed an enveloping
move to take the northern slopes of Mount Santa Rosa.
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Sherman tanks of the Army 706th Tank Battalion pass through Agana before
taking the cross-island road to join the 77th Division prior to the
Barrigada action. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92396
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(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
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Only 600 enemy bodies were found after the two-day
fight for Yigo and Santa Rosa. Yet, estimates of the enemy personnel at
Santa Rosa had been as high as 5,000. So this meant that enemy troops in
significant number now infested the jungled terrain everywhere on Guam.
Worse, some enemy tanks were also unaccounted for. Enemy survivors of
the Mount Santa Rosa battle kept drifting into the 9th Marines lines on
the Army flank, slowing the regiment's advance. Sharp-eyed Marines noted
more than a smattering of enemy movement near a particular hill in the
Army zone. This was believed to be the command post area of General
Obata.
The 3d Marines on the left of the division's zone had
progressed with the same occasional enemy opposition. A 19-man roadblock
held up the Marines, but was taken out quickly. Searching a corridor
between the 3d and the 9th Marines, the 21st Marines came upon the
bodies of 30 Guamanians near Chaguian. They had been beheaded.
The brigade had it a little easier on the far west,
for it found negligible resistance as it advanced along fairly good
trails. On 8 August, a patrol of the 22d Marines reached Ritidian Point,
the northernmost point of the island. Moving along a twisting cliff
trail to the beach, the Marines encountered less-than-aggressive
Japanese defenses which they quickly overcame. General Shepherd's 1st
Provisional Marine Brigade had the distinction of being first to reach
both the southernmost point of the island in the early days of the
campaign and the northernmost section of Guam at Ritidian Point at this
time.
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MajGen Henry L. Larsen, left, designated island commander, meets with
BGen Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., commanding general of the 1st Provisional
Marine Brigade, and Col Robert Blake, Gen Larsen's chief of staff With
them are three Guamanians who enlisted in the Navy before the war and
are now visiting their homes. Department of Defense Photo (USMC)
94395
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General Shepherd's Marines began vigorously
patrolling the area it they occupied, but found few Japanese. As a
result, General Geiger reduced the amount of naval gunfire placed on the
area, while Saipan-based Seventh Air Force P-47's made their last
bombing and strafing runs on Ritidian Point. The 22d Marines was down
below the cliffs at Ritidian, scouring along the beaches where there are
many caves. The 4th Marines was on the north coast at Mengagan Point and
tied by patrols to the 22d Marines. At 1800, 9 August, General Shepherd
declared organized resistance had ceased in his zone.
It was not so easy for the 3d Marines. On the night
of 8-9 August near Tarague, the regiment was hit by a last-resort
Japanese mortar and tank attack. Marine antitank grenades and bazooka
rockets were wet and ineffective and the Japanese blazed away with
impunity and then ducked back into the woods. Amazingly, when Major
William A. Culpepper, commanding the 2d Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel de
Zayas had been killed on 26 July), counted heads, he found that he had
suffered not a single casualty.
Patrols of the 9th Marines advanced to Pati Point,
the northeast projection of the island. Intelligence sources then
reported to Colonel Craig that a mass of Japanese (maybe 2,000) troops
were holed up at Savana Grand, a wild tract of jungle, coconut trees,
and high grasses near the coast. Colonel Craig did not want to risk
casualties so close to the end of the campaign, so the artillery
supporting the 9th Marines fired a total of 2,280 rounds. The few
Japanese survivors were either killed or became prisoners. The final
American positions formed along the coast. By nightfall of 8 August,
Colonel Craig's Marines could wave to the soldiers of the 306th
patrolling to their south.
General Geiger was not ready to declare Guam secure
until a pocket of tanks still existing in the 3d Division zone was wiped
out. That had to be done by the 10th, for that was the day Admiral
Nimitz was scheduled to arrive on a visit. There were tanks indeed and
the task of finding and eliminating them was given to Major Culpepper's
2d Battalion, 3d Marines. Advancing at 0730, the battalion and a platoon
of American Sherman tanks soon found two enemy mediums firing, only 400
yards up the trail the Marines were following. The Shermans left their
counterparts black and burning. Seven more enemy mediums were abandoned.
A Japanese infantry platoon withdrew to the coastal cliffs and was
killed there.
On that day, 10 August, at 1131 as he learned that
the last Japanese tanks still in action had been destroyed, General
Geiger declared all organized resistance on Guam had ended. It was a
great day for the Guamanians. The island was theirs again.
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
It was also the next to the last day for General
Obata. His Mount Mataguac position was strongly defended, so much so
that when the 306th had tried to force it earlier it failed. On the
morning of 11 August 1944, when the general knew his headquarters had
been discovered and that his enemy was coming for him, Obata signalled
to his emperor:
. . . . We are continuing a desperate battle. We have
only our bare hands to fight with. The holding of Guam has become
hopeless. Our souls will defend the island to the very end. I am
overwhelmed with sorrow for the families of the many officers and men. I
pray for the prosperity of the Empire.
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Enemy holdouts accompanied by their mascot are brought in to surrender
after intensive preparations by the Island Command Psychological Warfare
Unit.
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The 306th made the last assault supported by tanks
and demolition squads. The enemy defenders killed seven Americans and
wounded 17 before they went down to defeat, buried in the rubble of
blown caves and emplacements. General Obata took his own life or was
killed sometime during those last hours of the battle of Guam.
Major General Henry L. Larsen assumed command of the
Guam Island Command at 1200, 15 August. Under him, and largely with the
forces of the 3d Marine Division, the mopping up continued.
Part of Japan's terrible cost on Guam was the 10,971 bodies already
counted. Yet there were some 10,000 Japanese still on the island. At
first some of these men fought and staged ambushes, and a few sniped at
the Americans, but soon the remaining Japanese sought only one
thingfood! Most of the others fled when encountered. The Japanese
now had no central command. They starved, died of dysentery, became too
weak to flee, and then blew themselves up with the one precious grenade
which they saved to take their own lives. Aggressive American patrols
were soon killing or capturing 80 Japanese soldiers and sailors a day. A
daring few stole into Marine food storage areas at night. One soldier
scribbled: "All around me are enemy only. It takes a brave man indeed to
go in search of food."
In addition to the battlefield casualties, more than
8,500 Japanese were killed or captured on Guam between August 1944 and
the end of the war in August 1945.
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Prisoners of war in the Guam stockade stand with bowed heads as they are
read the August 1945 surrender announcement.
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In the 21 days of the Guam campaign ending 10 August,
Marine units of the III Amphibious Corps reported 1,190 men killed in
action, 377 dead of wounds, and 5,308 wounded. The 77th Division's
casualties were 177 soldiers killed and 662 wounded. The Army and the
Marines were a closely knit team in the recapture of Guam. It is reputed
that General Holland Smith was the first to refer to General Bruce's
troops as the "77th Marines." Major Aplington, a battalion commander in
the 3d Marines, commented on the soldiers:
In their fatigues so different from our herringbone
utilities and their olive drab ponchos (ours were camouflaged) so
different from us . . . there was no doubt in our minds that the 77th
were good people to have alongside in a fight and as a result we
referred to them as "The 77th Marine Division."
On the same busy day, 10 August, only hours after
Major Culpepper's battalion had knocked out the last of the Japanese
tanks, the Indianapolis (CA 35) steamed into Apra Harbor with
Marine Corps Commandant Lieutenant General Alexander A. Vandegrift on
board, accompanying Admiral Nimitz. On 15 August, Admiral Nimitz
directed that his for ward CinCPac-CinCPOA headquarters be established
on Guam, and from here, he directed the rest of the Pacific War. Soon
after, from airfields on Guam, as well as those on Tinian, B-29s were
blasting the Japanese home islands. Hard fighting was yet to be
experienced by Marine divisions on Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. But
whether they knew it or not, the end of the war was less than a year
away.
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The architects of victory in the Pacific met together on Guam on 10
August 1944, when Indianapolis (CA 35) brought Commandant of the
Marine Corps LtGen Alexander A. Vandegrift together with Commander in
Chief, Pacific Fleet, Adm Chester W Nimitz and Fifth Fleet Commander Adm
Raymond L. Spruance to the island. From left are MajGen Roy S. Geiger,
Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps; Adm Spruance; LtGen Holland M.
Smith, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific; Adm Nimitz; and
Gen Vandegrift. While together they discussed the future course of the
Pacific War. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 92087
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