Island Command Takes Over
The declaration of the end of organized resistance on Guam brought to a close the assault phase of the Marianas operation. In anticipation of the finish, Admiral Nimitz, on 8 August, had directed a reshuffling of commands to take place as soon as practicable after the island was secured. The order called for General Geiger and key staff members to report to Guadalcanal to take charge of the Palau landing.1 General Holland Smith to be relieved as Commanding General, Expeditionary Troops, Marianas and return to Pearl Harbor to continue his duties as Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific.2
All assault troops remaining in the Marianas were to be assigned to V Amphibious Corps, and when the situation warranted, the corps commander, Major General Harry Schmidt, was to transfer operational control of the units to the various island commanders. He would, however, retain authority to direct the training, rehabilitation, and evacuation of assault troops. His immediate superior, Vice Admiral John H. Hoover, Commander, Forward Area Central Pacific, would assume responsibility for the defense and development of the Marianas.3
At 1500, 10 August, Admiral Conolly hauled down his flag on board the Appalachian and transferred command of TF 53 and duties of Senior Officer Present Afloat (SOPA) to Admiral Reifsnider. By evening of this day no combat ships larger than destroyers, excluding Admiral Spruance's flagship, USS Indianapolis, remained in the Marianas area.4 Most of the ships that had supported the Guam assault were en route to the South Pacific to join the Third Fleet for future strikes against the Japanese. TF 53 was formally dissolved on 20 August 1944 after Admiral Reifsnider turned over his SOPA duties to the Deputy Commander, Forward Area Central Pacific (Commodore W. R. Quigley). The last of the naval commanders of the Guam assault left the Marianas on 26 August. On that date, after transferring responsibility for the Central Pacific to Admiral William F. Halsey, Commander, Third Fleet, Admiral Spruance departed for Pearl Harbor.
Earlier in the month, 12 August, General Geiger, his mission accomplished, left Guam by air for Guadalcanal. General Turnage assumed
temporary command of the Southern Troops and Landing Force, but was relieved at 1200, 12 August when General Schmidt, at sea en route to Guam, reported by dispatch to take control of assault troops. At 0700, 13 August, the CP of IIIAC closed on Guam, reopening at the same time on Guadalcanal. Headquarters detachments of VAC set up their CP near Agana at 1430 and took command of the remaining III Corps elements.
With the establishment of General Schmidt's command post, his staff started to direct clean-up activities, coordinating their efforts with those of the Island Command operations section under Lieutenant Colonel Shelton C. Zern.5 In accordance with Nimitz' directive, the island commander, General Larsen, took control of Guam at 1200, 15 August. "At this time, except for patrolling, the combat phase was completed; the huge task of relief and rehabilitation, construction and repair, and housing and feeding was ahead."6
Mopping-up Activities
General Larsen held conferences with Admiral Nimitz and top-ranking Marine officers on 11 August to acquaint them with the progress of the base development and defense plan for Guam. Island Command had already taken over all extended radio circuits and the joint communication center on 7 August. Two days later all unloading activities came under its control. Units of the advance naval base, Lion 6, commanded by Captain Adolph E. Becker, Jr., USN, began the extensive work necessary to convert Apra Harbor into the hub of a projected naval operating base.
Seabees of the 5th Naval Construction Brigade under Captain William O. Hiltabiddle (CEC), USN, were busily engaged in their assigned tasks of airfield construction and road improvement and repair. The Seabees also undertook the expansion of the island's existing water facilities to meet the requirements of the thousands of troops present. Some indication
MAJOR GENERAL LARSEN, Island Commander, confers with General Shepherd at the close of the compaign while two natives who returned to the island with the assault forces look on.of the broad scope of the work planned for the construction brigade was the assignment of nine naval and three special (stevedore) naval construction battalions, one Marine special engineer battalion, and four Army aviation engineer battalions to its initial complement.7
Since 10 August assault units had been engaged in mopping-up activities. Strong patrols and reinforced ambushes accounted for an average of over 80 Japanese killed or captured daily.8 Elements of the 3d Marine Division, flushing its sector of the northern jungles, added the greatest number to this score. On 14 August V Corps had established a line,
Naton Beach to Sassayan Point, above which the 3d and 77th Divisions received orders for each to maintain one infantry regiment and one artillery battalion to seek out and destroy all hostile elements within their respective zones.
The corps commander directed the remainder of both divisions to proceed immediately to camp sites to reorganize and prepare for future operations. Island Command assigned the east coast road between the Pago and Ylig Rivers to the 3d, and the hills east of Agat along Harmon Road to the 77th. The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, because of its imminent departure, was instructed to remain in its former combat zone above the designated line and continue vigorous patrolling to eliminate the remaining Japanese.9
The 21st Marines and the 306th Infantry, which drew the assignment to comb the northern jungle, encountered for the most part only disorganized remnants of the Imperial forces. Occasionally small groups of 10 or 15 forced a fire fight, but the results were invariably in favor of the Americans. A large proportion of the Japanese were defenseless; a few still had rifles, others only grenades or bayonets. The majority were also beginning to feel the pinch of hunger and thirst; captured diaries show the need for food as a gradually overwhelming obsession. Typical entries from the log of a Japanese Navy Corpsman killed in November 1944 by a garrison force patrol reveal the nature of most comments:
12 August--Fled into a palm grove feeling very hungry and thirsty. Drank milk from five coconuts and ate the meat of three.
15 August--Tried eating palm tree tips but suffered from severe vomiting in the evening.
23 August--Along my way I found some taro plants and ate them. All around me are enemies only. It takes a brave man, indeed, to go in search of food.
10 September--This morning I went out hunting. Found a dog and killed it. Compared with pork or beef it is not very good.
19 September--Our taro is running short and we can't afford to eat today.
2 October--These days I am eating only bread fruit. Went out in search of some today but it is very dangerous.
15 October--No food.10Outposts and patrols in the vicinity of ration dumps killed or captured a steady stream of starved men who had forgotten caution.11 The fortunate minority who could sustain themselves showed little or no offensive spirit, desiring only to avoid the probing patrols. All indications pointed to a long and exhausting hunt for the thousands of surviving enemy troops.
Gradually the burden of the task of seeking out the hidden Japanese fell to the 3d Marine Division. Operational control of the division passed to Island Command on 23 August, and 1/306 and 3/306, which had been cleaning out the area above the V Corps line, were assigned to the 3d Division. When these battalions reverted to the 77th's control on 26 August, the mop-up zones of both units came under the Marine division. In the brigade area, advance elements had begun to reembark on 21 August, and eight days later General Turnage's units took over responsibility for patrolling all of northern Guam.12 The last elements of the brigade were afloat by 31 August and the conquerors of Orote sailed for Guadalcanal. Island Command assumed control of all forces remaining on Guam on 1 September 1944.
One of General Larsen's major problems, besides Japanese survivors and the military development of Guam, was the relief and rehabilitation of the Guamanians. A census conducted by the Japanese civil government in January 1944 had listed 23,915 natives as being on the island.13 During the early part of August, civil affairs officers attached to Island Command and the assault units estimated that over 18,000 of these civilians were being cared for in the three refugee camps near Anigua, Agat, and Yona.14 As soon as patrols declared an area free of
NEW SINAJANA, one of several large towns set up by Civil Affairs Section of Island Command to house the natives displaced by the fighting on Guam.Japanese stragglers, natives were encouraged to return to their villages and farms and begin raising crops to help feed the non-military population. However, military preemption of increasingly larger areas of the island for airfields, combat firing ranges, training areas, camp sites, and supply depots prevented the natives from occupying many of the places where they had lived before the landing.
The establishing of new villages outside the areas occupied by American installations remedied this situation to some extent. The aim of the Island Command Civil Affairs Section under Colonel Charles I. Murray was to restore the native economy as soon as possible and repair the damage wrought by the enemy occupation and the recapture of the island. The section made extensive efforts to revive the copra and soap industries, provide a market for native handicraft among the troops, and employ the able-bodied in building up the Guam base. The Americans encouraged offshore fishing, which had been forbidden under the Japanese, in an attempt to increase the civilian larder. Preliminary steps were taken to reinstitute governmental agencies and arrangements made to compensate the Guamanians for their land and labor.15
The native guides who accompanied many of the Marine and Army patrols during the campaign proper and the mop-up period performed invaluable service in ferreting out Japanese
PATROL FIGHTERS of the native military government proceed along one of the many jungle trails seeking enemy holdouts. (Navy Photograph.)troops and equipment. After being supplied with arms and ammunition, most of these men functioned as regular patrol members.
The loyalty of the overwhelming majority of the Guamanians to the United States was as definite as that of the patrol guides. Investigation of reported collaborators and screening of all the natives to detect the few Japanese sympathizers revealed that most of those who aided the enemy had been forced to do so by lack of any alternative. The necessity of protecting and supervising the native population had been recognized by Admiral Nimitz, who authorized the formation of a successor to the prewar Insular Patrol Force.16 Headed by a Marine police chief, this Local Security Patrol Force was organized in August, its nucleus consisting of former members of the Insular Patrol and Marines from Island Command. In addition to normal police functions, the force participated in many Japanese-hunting patrols until 15 August 1945.
By the end of the war the entire face of Guam had been changed. A busy naval operating base occupied Apra Harbor, and Navy planes crowded the fields at Agana and on Orote Peninsula. On the northern plateau, B-29's of the Twentieth Air Force rested on fields bulldozed from the jungle that had impeded the advance of the III Amphibious Corps. On the heights above Agana was the advance headquarters of the Pacific Fleet, nerve center of Nimitz' strikes against the Japanese homeland. Scattered throughout the island were vast naval and military supply installations. Encamped in the south, reunited for the first time since August 1944, were the Marine elements of the assault forces that had taken Guam. A crowded year of training and battle had seen the 3d Marine Division fighting on Iwo Jima and the 6th Marine Division17 a leading participant in the Okinawa campaign.18 The island population on 31 August 1945 had swelled to over 220,000, with 21,838 natives, 65,095 Army, 77,911 Navy, and 58,712 Marine troops.19
ENEMY HOLDOUTS accompanied by their mascot are brought in to surrender after intensive preparations by the Island Command Psychological Warfare Unit.
At the end of August 1945, a little over a year after General Geiger had declared organized resistance over on Guam, a recapitulation of Japanese casualties showed that 18,377 enemy dead had been counted and 1,250 prisoners taken.20 More than 8,500 Japanese had been killed or captured since 10 August 1944. The efficiency of the organized campaign to eliminate the survivors was recognized by Colonel Takeda, who said:
Since August 11, [1944] the troops which had lost the center of command, and their commanders and men, entered, one by one, into the jungle to wait for the chance of counterattack. During this period LtCol H. Takeda in the north and Maj S. Sato in the south planned guerilla warfare, assembling the survivors living in the jungle, but owing to the loss of men and weapons and the shortage of food under successive subjugations, accompanied by skillful psychological warfare, their men dropped gradually into the hands of the Americans. Their objective failed. Thus it came the end of the war.21
Before the war's end the psychological warfare unit under Island Command had been successful in convincing Major Sato of the futility of further resistance. He surrendered on 11 June 1945 bringing in with him 34 men.22
After the Emperor issued his rescript at the end of the war, ordering Japanese troops to cease fighting, Lieutenant Colonel Hideyuki Takeda sent emissaries to General Larsen to arrange for his surrender. On 4 September 1945 he left his "division command post," which had been located in the jungle about a mile and a half southwest of Tarague since the end of the organized fighting,23 and led a group of 67 officers and men in to surrender. When he ordered in an additional 46 men from the same area on 11 September, the last unified element of the Japanese defenders of Guam was in American hands.24
PRISONERS OF WAR in a stockade on Guam stand with bowed heads as they are read Emperor Hirohito's announcement of unconditional surrender. (Navy Photograph.)Marianas Campaign Summary
The capture of Guam was but the final phase of a much larger and more ambitious undertaking that included the seizure of Saipan and Tinian. It was the possession of all three islands that gave the United States such an overwhelming strategical advantage in the remaining year of the war. Therefore, the discussion here of the effect on future operations of the lessons learned in the Marianas will be concerned with the total effort rather than the parts.25
To the Japanese high command the loss of control of the Marianas proved to be a heavy spiritual as well as material blow. Many felt as did the Emperor's chief naval advisor that "Hell is on us."26 In fact, the majority of military leaders agreed that there remained "no chance of ultimate success."27 Again and again, the bitter memories of defeated men
turned to that fateful June of 1944 when Marines stormed ashore at Saipan. Decisive victory on that island and the accompanying destruction of Japanese naval air in the Battle of the Philippine Sea ensured the subsequent capture of Tinian and Guam.
Over 50,000 Japanese fighting men28 gave their lives in frantic but futile defense of the three islands. A hard core of 30 infantry battalions composing the main strength of the 29th and 43d Divisions, 47th and 48th Independent Mixed Brigades, and 5th Naval Base Force was utterly destroyed.29 But the death of these men remained secondary in importance to loss of the Marianas.
Now, from their blocking positions astride the inner ring of Imperial defenses, American hunter-killer teams could choke off the trickle of supply ships and submarines that had previously reached outlying enemy garrisons. Dominance of the Marianas meant "submarine operations were completely shut out,"30 in the words of the Japanese underseas fleet commander. For the thousands of enemy troops purposely by-passed in the island-hopping drives through the South and Central Pacific, the last hope of rescue faded. To the end of the war their only visitors were watchdog planes and ships of American rear area commands.
This stranglehold imposed on Japan's extended positions, however, was not the most dangerous threat to her security. The naval base developed at Guam, capable of supporting one-third of the Pacific Fleet,31 and the tremendous forward supply depots maintained on that island posed a threat of quicker attacks on the Japanese home islands. Of primary importance were the B-29 fields developed on all the islands captured by TF 51. Raids launched from these airstrips brought the full impact of total war to the Japanese people in the punishing rain of explosives and fire dropped on their homeland.
On 24 November 1944 one hundred B-29's left Saipan to hit Tokyo. Before the end of the year, stronger raids had hit the enemy capital three more times and demolished the Mitsubishi Aircraft Plant at Nagoya. The number of B-29's and the frequency of their attacks increased steadily. At the war's end almost a thousand of the giant planes based on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam were blasting targets on the Japanese home islands.32 The climax came in August of 1945 when two B-29's rose from Tinian's fields to carry atomic death and devastation to hapless Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There had been a tremendous outpouring of national effort involved in the capture of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. Shipyards, factories, farms, arsenals, and training camps had funnelled the men and equipment necessary to maintain the attack force into the long supply line stretching from the United States through Pearl Harbor and Eniwetok to the fighting front. More than 600 ships from carriers to tankers, in excess of 2,000 planes of all types, and over 300,000 men from all services took part in FORAGER.33 The actual assault echelon numbered 54,891 at Guam and 67,545 at Saipan, from which force 42,290 men were drawn for the Tinian landing.34 Expeditionary Troops' records show that more than a fifth of the total assault troops became casualties in the 54 days of organized combat between 15 June and 10 August 1944. Of the 24,439 killed, wounded, or missing in action, 4,679 men died as a result of action on the three islands. However, for each American killed, ten Japanese lost their lives.35
It is interesting to speculate how much the casualty figure might have been whittled down, if the forces had been available, by an assault on the Marianas prior to June 1944. If the Americans had attacked earlier in the year with
APRA HARBOR had become one of the world's busiest ports by the war's end with an average of 1,700 vessels standing in or out every month. (Navy Photograph.)a force the same size as that which took the Marshalls (60,000), at least one Japanese admiral stated:
. . . it is certain that, the defense preparations having only started in March, successful resistance would have been impossible. In other words, such a force would have been overwhelming.36
What is certain, however, is that the attack, when launched, caught the enemy off balance. Confirmation of this viewpoint comes from Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, IJN, Ambassador to the United States at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, who recalled, "Everywhere, I think, you attacked before the defense was ready. You came far more quickly than we expected."37
During FORAGER the Americans learned several valuable lessons in amphibious tactics. The most important of these proved to be in the fields of naval gunfire support, close air support, and ship-to-shore supply operations.
At Saipan, the heavy casualties on the beach gave proof of the ineffectiveness of the two-day NGF preparation there. On the other hand, the lengthy pounding given Tinian and Guam disrupted enemy defense preparations, knocked out most coast defense guns, and insured landings with relatively light losses. The inference was obvious, and with the added weight of evidence from NGF results at Peleliu and Iwo Jima, the Pacific Fleet conducted a preinvasion bombardment schedule of eight days at Okinawa in 1945.38
Admiral King, reviewing the effectiveness of naval gunfire during the FORAGER campaign, observed:
In the Marianas operation, though heavy and prolonged concentrations of naval gunfire succeeded in neutralizing immediate beach defenses, mortar and artillery positions located in the rear of beaches were not silenced, thus demonstrating the need for continuous
supporting fires from seaward to a distance of approximately 5,000 yards inland.39
This lack of protective fire for initial assault troops before artillery fire control agencies could be set up ashore had been duly noted by senior troop commanders at both Saipan and Guam.40 By the time the Tenth Army hit Okinawa on 1 April 1945, the period during which the Navy supplied continuous fire support after H-Hour had been increased to four hours from a previous high of 90 minutes at Guam.41
Close air support operations during the remainder of the war also became more effective as a result of FORAGER.42 The system initiated at Guam of limiting gunfire maximum ordinates and controlling plane pull-out levels to permit simultaneous air and NGF bombardment of the same area became standard practice. This method resulted in a terrific combination of flat trajectory and plunging fires more devastating in effect than any concentration laid down by only one of the supporting arms.
In another field of air operations, the recommendations of troop commanders, championed by Generals Schmidt and Geiger and approved by General Holland Smith, won acceptance by the Navy. On 30 December 1944 Admiral King announced that:
Four CVE's have been designated for close troop support and will embark Marine aircraft squadrons. It is not anticipated that Marine squadrons will furnish all close air support but they will be used with Marine divisions when the situation permits. In addition a certain number of Marine aviators are being assigned to the various amphibious force flagships to assist in control of support aircraft.43
In general, supply operations proceeded smoothly at each of the objectives in the Marianas. Even the hurried commitment of the 77th Infantry Division at Guam, which presented some problems, did not jeopardize the mission of the attack force. However, there was sufficient evidence of confusion at offshore cargo transfer points and on board landing control vessels to warrant Admiral Turner recommending that only "the most experienced personnel available should be used in the Control Parties for assault landings."44 Certainly the haphazard way in which III Corps Artillery was landed and supplied during the initial stages at Guam had quite a bit to do with the above directive. The strong protest registered by General del Valle bore fruit in other fields too, as his operations officer has noted:
. . . the various high commanders involved realized the tremendous problem involved in landing the heavy Corps Artillery ammunition in an amphibious operation. As a result, a definite artillery ammunition unloading plan was prepared for Okinawa which brought our ammunition ashore smoothly and properly.45
In order to speed up the flow of equipment ashore and expedite handling on the beach and in dumps, most unit supply officers of Expeditionary Troops recommended that initial assault items of supply be palletized.46 Positive results followed increased use of this efficient supply method in landings following FORAGER. As foreseen by Admiral King, there was a reduction in the number of shore party personnel required to handle the palletized equipment and a corresponding increase in assault troops.47
Unfortunately, the Japanese as well as the Americans profited from experience in the Marianas. Enemy headquarters on each island had contact with Tokyo and submitted daily action reports until the end of organized resistance. According to a captured message file of the 31st Army, plus reliable comments
and reports available following the war, strengths and weaknesses of both the attackers and defenders were analyzed and continually reported. From this information, the enemy high command concluded that the punishing effectiveness of the American air-NGF-artillery team in supporting the infantry dictated a change in Japanese tactics.
Battle studies distributed from Tokyo stressed the need to dig in troops and guns and underground all supplies and communication lines. To counter the power of American fire support, which enabled a force to penetrate any single thin defensive line, Japanese commanders gave instructions to organize defenses in depth.48
There were to be no more field days for
SUPERFORTRESSES of the Twentieth Air Force return from a 3,000-mile mission over Japan to their home base at North Field, Guam. (Air Force Photograph.)
American gunners pouring their fire on inviting targets of thousands of men charging in all out banzai attacks, as had happened in the Marianas. Until the end of the war the average enemy soldier stuck to his assigned defensive position like a leech, firing from cover and doing his best to take as many Americans as possible to the grave with him. At least two Japanese commanders, those at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, issued orders against expending everything in one frenzied counterattack. The extensive casualty lists and the lengthy campaigns necessary to capture the islands of Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa furnish mute testimony to the efficiency of the new enemy defensive techniques.
To the average American participant in the Marianas campaign, the war was on a minute-to-minute basis. Big picture strategy had no place in his personal struggle to survive, and even today his picture of the operation is a compound of individual memories that probably missed this history and many others. Yet no matter how small a part an individual took in capturing these islands, he is justified in feeling he helped shorten the war. For it was from the Marianas that ships, planes, and men struck out to bring defeat to Japan.
Table of Contents ** Previous Chapter (6) * Next Chapter (Appendix I)
Footnotes
1. For a complete discussion of the Palau operation see Maj F. O. Hough, The Assault on Peleliu, MC Historical Monograph, (Washington, 1950).
2. On 12Jul44 Gen H. M. Smith turned over command of VAC and NTLF to MajGen Harry Schmidt and assumed command of the newly activated Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPac). This headquarters took control of both IIIAC and VAC and became the top Marine Corps echelon in the field. Until the end of the Guam campaign Gen Smith served concurrently as CG, ExTrps and CG, FMFPac.
3. ComFifthFlt WD, August 1944, 13.
4. Ibid., 14.
5. Col B. W. Atkinson, IsCom A-3 through the planning and assault phases of the operation, had become island provost marshal on 8 August.
6. IsCom WD, 1Apr-15Aug44, 8.
7. Ibid., Enclosure N.
8. IsCom WD, 15-31Aug44, Enclosure A. This figure is the average of the period from 10 August to the end of that month.
9. VAC WD, August 1944, Enclosure I.
10. IsCom A-2 Periodic Rpt 87.
11. How very desperate the food situation became is revealed by an authenticated case of cannibalism which took place in January 1945 among a group of Japanese soldier and civilian holdouts. IsCom A-2 Periodic Rpt 196.
12. As an example of the extent of the patrolling, one battalion (3/21) remained in northern Guam until January 1945, operating out of a bivouac near Yigo, and hunting down the surviving Japanese. Duplantis.
13. IIIAC C-2 Periodic Rpt 10.
14. IsCom WD, 1Apr-15Aug44, Enclosure K.
15. IsCom WD, 15-31Aug44, Enclosure F.
16. ComFifthFlt WD, August 1944, 17.
17. On 7Sept44 the 1st ProvMarBrig had been redesignated the 6th MarDiv with Gen Shepherd in command.
18. The 77th InfDiv had fought again beside the 6th MarDiv in the Okinawa operation, after participating in the battles on Leyte in the Philippines.
19. IsCom WD, 15-31Aug44, Enclosures B and F.
20. Ibid., Enclosure C. These figures include about 500 Japanese civilians that were on the island at the time of the American landing.
21. Takeda.
22. IsCom WD, June 1945, Enclosure C.
23. Takeda Letter.
24. IsCom WD, September 1945, Enclosure C.
25. For a discussion of innovations peculiar to each campaign see Saipan, Chap VII; Tinian, Chap V, and Chap V of this monograph.
26. USSBS(Pac) Interrogation No. 392 of Fleet Admiral Osami Nagano, IJN; Chief of Naval General Staff, Apr41-Feb44; Supreme Naval Advisor to Emperor, Feb44-20Nov45.
28. TF 56 G-2 Rpt, 58-59.
29. Ibid., 41-47.
30. USSBS (Pac) Interrogation No. 366 of VAdm Shigeyosh Miwa, IJN; successively Director, Naval Submarine Department and CinC, 6th (Submarine) Fleet.
31. Fleet Admiral E. J. King, Third Official Report to the Secretary of the Navy, 8Dec45.
32. Global Mission, 540.
33. Fleet Admiral E. J. King, Second Official Report to the Secretary of the Navy, 12Mar45.
34. TF 56 G-1 Rpt, 3-23.
35. TF 56 MedRpt, Annex A.
37. USSBS(Pac) Interrogation No. 429 of Adm Kichisaburo Nomura; former Ambassador to the United States (1941); appointed member of the Privy Council, 26May44.
38. Turner.
39. CominCh P-007, Chap 3, 14.
40. The proximity of Saipan to Tinian permitted artillery emplaced on the former island to support the Tinian landing. As a result, continuous protective fire was available to assault troops of the 4th MarDiv.
41. Gilliam.
42. See discussion of air support in Saipan, 248-250, and Tinian, 126-130.
43. CominCh P-007, Chap 2, 8.
44. CTF 51 OpRpt, Recommendations, 2.
45. Henderson.
46. Palletization is the process of arranging a quantity of any item, packaged or unpackaged, upon a wooden pallet (platform on which supplies are stored). The load is then securely strapped or lashed to the pallet so that the whole is handled as a unit. At Guam, a good portion of 77th Div gear was palletized, but the lack of landing vehicles forced the breakup of unit loads, adding considerably to the difficulties of maintaining division supply levels.
47. CominCh P-007, Chap 5, 11.
48. Maj Y. Horie, IJA, "Explanation of Japanese Defense Plan and Battle of Iwo Jima," 25Jan46; CinCPac-CinCPOA Translation B-14986, 32d Army Battle Instructions, 15Feb45.
