Exactly 80 years ago today, during June and July 1944, while the Allies in Europe struggled to take back Normandy after D-Day, American ground forces invaded Saipan, one of the Mariana islands in the north Pacific. It proved to be the most costly US operation to date in the Pacific War, with almost 3000 American soldiers killed and over 10,000 wounded; on the Japanese side, virtually the entire garrison of 27,000 men died, while hundreds more Japanese civilians committed suicide by throwing themselves off cliffs onto the rocks below. The dramatic events on Saipan, as on other hard-fought islands in the Pacific conflict - Guadalacanal, Guam, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - have always had a prominent place in American battle narratives, giving rise to the popular misconception that the Pacific War was principally a land war in which heroic GIs - typically, they were Marines - engaged in murderous combat with a fanatical Japanese enemy on a succession of rocky atolls. But all of these island campaigns were preceded by, and only achievable through, massive amphibious operations involving fleets of battleships and other vessels and, above all, squadrons of warplanes brought to battle on giant aircraft carriers. Without American air supremacy, the outcome of many of these island campaigns could have been even more costly, if also more doubtful. Indeed, in two of the greatest naval engagements of the Second World War - the 1942 battles of the Coral Sea and Midway - it was pilots rather than soldiers or sailors who determined events: in both battles, no American or Japanese surface vessel ever came in sight of an opposing ship because all the fighting was done by warplanes, with dive bombers playing a key role in the sinking of enemy carriers and battleships. And if you think General MacArthur was the hero of this Pacific war (as he was in the eyes of the wartime American press and public), historians are now much more sceptical of his reputation, won seemingly less by real achievement than skilful manipulation of the media.
If you think you know about WW2, it's time to think again.
An Understanding History Podcast
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