BEACHHEAD IN THE MARIANAS

Before the Marines and Army infantrymen had well secured their toehold on Saipan, in the Marianas, TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod, veteran of Attu and Tarawa, was ashore with them. He radioed:

At dawn on D-day Saipan looked like a low-lying prehistoric monster whose high, rising spine was Mt. Tapotchau. Already the sugar-mill town of Charan Kanoa was afire or smoking at several points and there was some smoke rising from Garapan from the bombing and shelling of the previous two days. At 5:45 the big guns began--gunfire from 5-inch destroyer to 16-inch battleship shells. Tinian Island, five miles south of Saipan, got its share of shells against artillery emplacements and other targets.

The first D-day air strike began at,7 o'clock as dozens of dive bombers, torpedo bombers and, fighters tossed in the air over Saipan. There was still fairly intense antiaircraft fire, although the previous two days' strikes had completely eliminated all Jap air resistance.

As we watched from the bridge of a transport, one Hellcat, strafing from 700 feet, caught a burst of flak. The plane burst into flame and plummeted into the water. The fire was extin uished as quickly as"'the life of the pilot.

Troops from the transports had long since been loaded into their small boats or amphtracks [amphibious tractors] when I boarded a small boat at 7:45 with a brigadier general and his staff. We rode out to a control vessel to await orders to land. By now the acrid stench of gunpowder was strong, even 3,000 yards offshore in the control boat. A pall of smoke now covered the length of the island, obscuring even Mt. Tapotchau. A shell splashed 150 yards off our bow. Said the captain: "I think we are being sniped at."

Same Old Enemy. Japs are funny people. We learned later what had happened to our northern landing forces. The first three waves got in all right with light artillery opposition. But the Japs--for some reason known only to them--waited for the fourth and fifth waves. On them they laid a murderous barrage, both on the reef and on the beaches. A young battalion operations officer who had come by my room and waved, "See you on the beach," had his head blown off just before he reached that beach. "He got it quick," said his best friend.

But the first three waves got in almost untouched. A battalion executive officer said: "As we hit the beach a scrawny little Jap jumped out of his trench. He was the only Jap we saw for some time after hitting the beach. There was a big rifleman right in front of him. The rifleman was so surprised he forgot to use his weapons. This 6-ft. guy of ours grabbed the Jap and started wrestling with him. He got him by the neck and shook him, swinging him all the way around. He had almost killed the Jap with his bare hands while we all stood around looking, until somebody bayoneted him."

Turnover in Command. This officer's battalion commander was wounded in his command post about an hour after it was set up--a nasty mortar tear in his backside. The major took over command, but after a couple of hours he was slightly wounded in the back by a shellburst. Then an observer took over until a regular turned up. He was the fourth commander of the battalion within ten hours.

Three other battalion commanders in our northern force were wounded the first day. One of them, one of the best known figures in the armed forces, was struck by a 13-mm. shell which punctured his lung, and five pieces of artillery shrapnel which tore into his arm and wrist. I saw him in a foxhole just after the doctors had dressed his wounds.

He had led so many assault battalions that somebody had called him "often a bride but never a bridesmaid," but now it was obvious that he would never lead another. Said he: "I hate like hell for this to happen so early. But I'll be all right. I'll see you back on States-side and we'll throw a whiz-dinger." Said the brigadier general: "No man in the shape he's in has a right to look so well and talk so normally."

To the Beach. It was shortly after noon when the brigadier general's four amphtracks started ashore from the control boat. The Japs did not start shooting at us until we hit a reef, about 1,000 yards offshore. To our portside a boat had just been hit; its occupants were swimming frantically in every direction, some trying to reach other boats farther out, others heading for shore. Artillery opened up on our four boats--probably 77-mm. guns. It was poor shooting--we made it to the beach.

The shelling there, after we had landed, was more rugged. The general set up his command post about 20 yards inland. In an aid station near by in a deep tank trap, there were 14 casualties. The water which seeped through the sand was already red with blood. Artillery fire burst continuously around the aid station but no direct hits were scored.

A few yards to the right of the aid station five dead Japs lay in a hole beside their dismantled machine gun. It was more Japs than I saw in any other one spot that first day. They had evidently been taking their machine gun apart for withdrawal inland when a bomb or shell scored a direct hit on their hole. A souvenir-hunting Corpsman was removing the bayonet from one Jap's scabbard. A colonel, whose regimental command post was near by, shouted: "You'll get yourself mixed up with a booby trap. Now goddam it, leave him alone!"

Wreckage. I walked south along the beach with an artillery captain from Iowa whose guns had not yet arrived. We counted nearly 100 dead Americans on the beach or within a few yards of it. There were also many wounded who had been treated by Corpsmen but had not yet been evacuated to an aid station. Mostly the dead were gathered in groups of two or three, probably hit by the same artillery bursts. Perhaps two-thirds of them had been treated, then had died of their great, jagged wounds or had been hit a second time as they lay on the beach. The bodies of the other third had been mangled almost beyond recognition.

In one shell hole on the edge of the airstrip the Japs had evidently registered a direct mortar or artillery hit. The six Americans who had been occupying the hole had been blown to pieces and no more than half of any one man remained. One man's hand, ten feet from the hole, still held the trigger of his piece. Said the artillery captain: "That man loved his rifle."

Foxhole for the Night. Nowhere have I seen the nature of the Jap better illustrated than it was near the airstrip at dusk. I had been digging a foxhole for the night when one man shouted: "There is a Jap under those logs!" The command post security officer was dubious, but he handed concussion grenades to a man and told him to blast the Jap out. Then a sharp ping of the Jap bullet whistled out of the hole and from under the logs a skinny little fellow--not much over 5 ft. tall --jumped out waving a bayonet.

An American tossed a grenade and it knocked the Jap down. He struggled up, pointed his bayonet into his stomach and tried to cut himself open in approved hara-kiri fashion. The disemboweling never came off. Someone shot the Jap with a carbine. But, like all Japs, he took a lot of killing. Even after four bullets had thudded into his body he rose to one knee. Then the American shot him through the head and the Jap was dead.

That first night was a succession of Jap artillery shells. From 8 until 9, from 11 until 1, and from 4 until 5, Jap artillery guns and mortars laid rough patterns along the beach and some 500 yards inland--one shell every five seconds. Around our command post and aid station perhaps 20 shells burst within 25 yards but as far as I know no one was hit during the night in our area. Men who are in holes are hard to hit.

All through the night our destroyers offshore and our mortars on the beach threw up star shells which lighted the area like daylight and prevented strong attacks by stealth. By 11 o'clock of the second morning even the most conservative could see that we had come to stay.

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