Marines In World War II - The Recapture Of Guam [Illustrated Edition]

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Text originally published in 1954 under the same title.

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

The Recapture of Guam

By

Major O.R. Lodge, USMC

Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps

1954

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

Foreword 7

Preface 8

Chapter 1 — Background 11

The Big Picture 11

Guam and the Guamanians 13

The Japanese Were Ready 25

Chapter 2 — Planning and Preparing 36

Joint Planning 36

Logistics 40

Intelligence 43

Tactical Planning 45

Training and Rehearsal 46

Naval Lift 49

Re-evaluation of the Situation 51

Attack Preparations 52

Chapter 3 — W-Day to Landing of the Reserve 72

Asan-Adelup Beachhead 73

The Southern Assault 92

Landing of the 305th RCT 107

Trouble on the Left Flank 109

Mt. Alifan Captured 123

Floating Reserve Wades Ashore 128

Chapter 4 — Drive to the FBL 137

Japanese Bid for Victory 142

Fonte Plateau: Securing the FBL 171

Reconnaissance Patrols to the South 181

Chapter 5 — Other Parts of the Team 185

Naval Gunfire Support 185

Fortifications 186

Defense Installations 186

Cases Where Naval Gunfire Had No Effect 187

Air Support 188

Artillery in the Fight 189

Engineer Operations 191

Shore Party Activities 193

War Dogs, Military Police, and Communicators 194

Medical Evacuation 196

Chapter 6 — Into the Jungle 211

Attack Preparations 212

Agana and its Airfield 220

Water at Last—Barrigada Village 226

Fight for Finegayan 249

77th's Prelude to Mt. Santa Rosa 261

The Final Drive 263

Chapter 7 — The Finish in the Marianas 288

Island Command Takes Over 288

Mopping-up Activities 289

Marianas Campaign Summary 293

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 305

Appendix I — Bibliography 306

The Recapture of Guam 306

Documents 306

War Diaries 310

Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals 311

Miscellaneous 312

Appendix II — Chronology 314

1944 314

Appendix III — Casualties 317

Appendix IV — Command and Staff List of Major Units — 21 July 1944-10 August 1944 320

EXPEDITIONARY TROOPS 320

SOUTHERN TROOPS AND LANDING FORCE 320

III AMPHIBIOUS CORPS TROOPS 320

III AMPHIBIOUS CORPS ARTILLERY 321

3D MARINE DIVISION 322

1ST PROVISIONAL MARINE BRIGADE 332

77TH INFANTRY DIVISION (USA) 337

ISLAND COMMAND 341

Appendix V — United States Ships Participating in the Guam Operation 343

Appendix VI — Southern Troops and Landing Force Order of Battle for Guam 346

Appendix VII — Japanese Order of Battle on Guam 355

Appendix VIII — Navy Unit Commendations 357

Foreword

I have always had a feeling of deep satisfaction in having been the commander of one of the assault elements that returned the American flag to Guam. The island once more stands ready to fulfill its destiny as an American fortress in the Pacific.

The conquest of Guam was a decisive triumph of combined arms over a formidable Japanese defensive force which took full advantage of the island's rugged terrain.

The heroic action of the veteran Marines who seized Orote Peninsula and Apra Harbor gave the Navy a much-needed advance base for further operations in the Pacific. Once marine and Army units captured northern Guam, engineers moved in and out from the jungle the airfields from which the Twentieth Air Force launched B-29 raids, bringing the full realization of war to the Japanese homeland.

LEMUEL C. SHEPHERD, JR.

GENERAL, U. S. MARINE CORPS

COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

Preface

THE RECAPTURE OF GUAM is the twelfth in a series of operational monographs prepared by the Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters U. S. Marine Corps, designed to give the military student and the casual reader an accurate and detailed account of the operations in which Marines participated during World War II. When sufficient of these monographs have been completed they will be integrated into a final Operational History of the Marine Corps in World War II.

With Army units fighting directly beside the Marines throughout most of the campaign, Army activities are treated herein with sufficient detail to give the proper perspective to the overall account.

Many officers and men who participated in this campaign have contributed to the preparation of this monograph by generously answering specific inquiries, commenting on preliminary drafts, or submitting to interview. Grateful acknowledgment is made herewith. Special recognition is extended to Office of Naval History, Naval Records and Library, and Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army—in particular Dr. Philip A. Crowl and Mr. Thomas G. Wilds of the Pacific Section. Appreciation for the extensive research required in presenting an accurate and complete account of the campaign, especially as to the Japanese viewpoint, is extended to Mr. Henry I. Shaw, Jr. Finally, the help of Lieutenant Colonel Frank O. Hough in editing the manuscript is acknowledged with gratitude. Maps included herein were prepared by the Reproduction Section, Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, Virginia. Official Marine Corps photographs have been used to illustrate this monograph unless otherwise noted.

T. A. WORNHAM

BRIGADIER GENERAL, U. S. MARINE CORPS

ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-3

Figure 1 COVER PICTURE: First assault waves of Marines take cover prior to moving inland on Guam. In the background smoke rises from a burning LVT hit by enemy fire.

Figure 2 AMERICAN COLORS are officially raised for the first time on Guam in front of III Amphibious Corps Headquarters on 27 July 1944.

Chapter 1 — Background

In the early summer of 1944, with blaring headlines making all the world aware of the Normandy invasion and its follow-up operations, public attention in the United States was focused on Europe. Campaigns in the Pacific were dwarfed by the tremendous scale of the Allied drive against Germany. The full significance of the capture of the Southern Marianas, with the American return to Guam, was overshadowed by the more voluminous accounts of the European conflict. Yet, in two short months on these islands, the Japanese lost their last chance for victory in the Pacific.

The Big Picture

By June of 1944 the outer island screen of Japanese defenses had been riddled by American attacks. New bases in the Marshalls had been seized in February at Kwajalein, Majuro, and Eniwetok by forces of the Pacific Ocean Areas. In March and April, landings in the South and Southwest Pacific theaters had added the Admiralties, Emirau, Hollandia, and Aitape to the rapidly growing chain of Allied installations. Shore-based Army, Navy, and Marine air squadrons harassed and pounded by-passed strong points into neutralization. With practiced ease planes of Fast Carrier Task Force 58 struck repeatedly at Truk, the Western Carolines, and Southern Marianas. The outlook for the Japanese was dark, indeed. A strangling noose was tightening around the inner perimeter guarding the path to their homeland.

Threatened at all points on an arc from the Southern Philippines to the Southern Marianas, the Japanese leaders were well aware that the decisive actions of the war were at hand. The fall of the outer zone of defense was not only a tactical loss; it meant the collapse of the entire strategic concept of Imperial Headquarters.{1} Recognizing this, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, Commander-in-Chief, Combined Fleet, in a message to all of his commanding officers on 4 May 1944 warned:

The war is drawing close to the lines vital to our national defense. The issue of our national existence is unprecedentedly serious; an unprecedented opportunity exists for deciding who shall be victorious and who defeated.{2}

In preparation for the expected amphibious strike at the inner ring, the Japanese concentrated most of their remaining carrier strength at Tawi-Tawi, north of Borneo. The enemy's strategy was simple; at the first definite indication of an American assault, naval forces would assemble, attack, and annihilate the invasion fleet. The Japanese hoped that the first blow would be struck at Palau within easy range of shore-based air, and close to their naval bases. The Americans, however, did not intend to accommodate; they planned to hit a target closer to the homeland.

To most American planners the islands of the Southern Marianas were essential in the drive to shorten the war. They occupy a central position dominating the Western Pacific on an arc from Tokyo through the Ryukus to Formosa, the Philippines, and northern New Guinea.

Their capture would cut the strategic line of communication from Japan to its island holdings in the South Pacific and effectively isolate the garrisons there and would, for the first time during the war, permit Americans to operate on interior rather than exterior lines.{3} In addition, enemy planes could no longer stage through the airfields of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam to attack American forces hammering at the Japanese bases in the South and Central Pacific. But uppermost in the minds of the high-level strategists were three further considerations that made the target even more attractive. First, from the same airfields now being used by enemy planes and other sites selected for early development, B-29's of the Army Air Forces could initiate raids on Japan itself. Secondly, capture of Guam would permit the establishment of a submarine refueling point much closer to enemy areas. And finally, Apra Harbor offered a good anchorage for an advance naval base.

By first taking Saipan, headquarters of the defensive cordon in the Central Pacific, Americans could deal a fatal blow to Japanese hopes of retaining their dwindling island possessions. Furthermore, denial of the airstrips on this island to enemy planes would enable the Fifth Fleet to raise an effective air barrier over the Marianas and permit landings to be made on Guam and Tinian.

Guam's capture would return an important possession to American hands and provide a forward supply base for future operations in the Pacific. The flat terrain of Tinian would afford ideal heavy bomber strips from which round-the-clock strikes could be launched against Japan. If the Japanese accepted the challenge of an attack on these islands, a hoped-for showdown battle between the two fleets might take place.

The assault on Saipan,{4} 15 June 1944,{5} brought an immediate Japanese naval reaction.

The enemy's carrier task force came out of hiding and steamed toward the Marianas to meet the American amphibious effort. On 19-20 June 1944, planes from Task Force 58 engaged the enemy fleet, and the action that followed, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, proved disastrous for the Nipponese naval air arm. United States planes destroyed 402 planes, sank one carrier (Hiyo) and two attack oilers, and damaged four carriers, a battleship, and an oiler. In addition, on 19 June, torpedoes from American submarine pickets sank two carriers, the Taiho and Shokaku.{6} The badly mauled Japanese retired, but because of the shortage of fuel in destroyers and the disorganization caused by the necessity of taking planes on board during darkness, the U. S. Fifth Fleet could not press the attack further. Nevertheless, a crippling blow had been dealt to enemy naval air power and the danger of interference to the Marianas landings lessened. When Saipan fell on 9 July 1944, the Americans broke into the inner ring of the Japanese defenses and greatly reduced the enemy's potential for holding Guam.

Guam and the Guamanians

Dominated for years by the Japanese, the Marianas group forms an arc over 400 miles long across the Central Pacific extending from 13° to 20° north latitude and with the center of the group at 144° east longitude. Of its 15 islands, only Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam are inhabitated. The latter, with its 228 square miles, is the largest land mass in the group and approximates the total area of the remaining 14 islands. Long considered of great strategic importance, Guam was the only American territory in the Japanese Pacific stronghold.

The island's irregular shape defies glib description, but its narrow waist divides it roughly into two equal parts. (See Map 2, Map Section) The southern half, an oval about 8 by 16 miles, has its main axis north to south. Jutting to the northeast, the remainder is a rugged area approximately 7 by 14 miles. Fringing the entire island, except at the mouths of streams, is a coral reef shelf ranging from 20 to 700 yards wide.

Towering above the narrow coral sand beaches of the northern half are sheer cliffs 200 to 600 feet high that rim the shoreline from Fadian Point to Tumon Bay. Inland, a vast cascajo (coral limestone) plateau extends from the middle of the island to the northern tip and is broken by three mountain heights: in the south Mt. Barrigada (640 feet), in the east, Mt. Santa Rosa (840 feet), and in the extreme north, Mt. Machanao (576 feet). Growing through the thin layer of red topsoil that covers the cascajo is a tangled mass of tropical forest. Lianas, weeds, air plants, and dense undergrowth choke the space between the trees to form a virtually impassable barrier to cross-country movement. Marking the southern limit of the plateau is a 200-foot bluff that stretches across the island from the northwest slopes of Mt. Barrigada to the upper reaches of Agana{7} Bay.

The central lowland belt, dividing the island, extends from Agana Bay on the west coast to Pago Bay on the east coast. It is generally 100-200 feet above sea level and has many small, abrupt changes in elevation near the Pago River. The area contains several springs, the largest of which is located a few feet above sea level on the southern edge of Agana swamp. In this extensive swamp lies the source of a small river which empties into the bay.

Immediately to the south the land begins to rise abruptly and culminates in a wide, long mountain range that parallels the west coast. Once a plateau, this range has been eroded into numerous ravines, valleys, and gorges. Of volcanic origin, it extends from the vicinity of Adelup Point near the waist of the island to Port Ajayan on the southern tip. Just inland from Apra Harbor, rising to a height of 1,082 feet, is the Chachao-Alutom-Tenjo massif, largely composed of sedimentary rock from which the superimposed lava has rotted and fallen away.

South of this mass the range descends to a 400-foot saddle opposite Agat Bay. Then it rises to the Alifan-Lamlam-Bolanos-Sasalaguan ridge line which contains the highest point on the island, Mt. Lamlam (1,334 feet). The western slopes are steep and merge into low foothills and a narrow belt of rolling lowlands. On the other hand, the eastern slopes are more gradual, becoming, at an elevation of 400 feet a plateau that extends to the coast and ends in high bluffs above a narrow coastal flat. Covering this plateau is a carpet of sword, cogon, and bunch grass interspersed by short stretches of scrub forest.

The moist valleys of the numerous rivers and streams that rise in the central ridge are also heavily forested. Ravines and the lower mountain slopes are covered with the same type of jungle growth found in the northern part of the island. Rivers are all fordable by men afoot, but the steep banks in some cases prevent vehicles from making a crossing. As in the north, there is a large marsh area found in southern Guam; its treacherous depths border coral-jammed Apra Harbor and close most of the neck of Orote Peninsula. The peninsula itself is a cascajo formation with sheer cliffs ringing three-quarters of its perimeter. A matted tangle of low scrub growth stretches from Orote Point to the mangrove swamp on the shores of the harbor. Viewed as a whole, the terrain of Guam presents a formidable barrier to conquest, even without determined human defenders.

The island has another ally over which man has little control: the weather. From July to November, 20 to 25 days of every month are rainy, with more than two-thirds of the years' annual total of 90 inches of rain falling. Roads become quagmires and military operations are considerably hindered. Also from July to November a continuous succession of typhoons to the south and westward produce swells and rough landing conditions on the western beaches. The southern beaches are always bathed in surf from the prevailing trades. However, for the most part the climate is healthful and pleasant, with a constant, uniformly high temperature that varies little from the mean of 87 degrees. The Marianas area has often been called the white man's tropics, and perhaps it was this beneficent climate that helped influence the original European colonization.{8}

The first white men to visit the Marianas were sailors of Magellan's globe-circling expedition who reached Guam in March of 1521. The natives actively resented the intrusion and made their displeasure so evident that the Spanish commander named their islands Islas de los Ladrones (Islands of the Thieves).

These original inhabitants, the Chamorros,{9} were an imposing people with a lighter skin, a fine physique, a keen intelligence, and an aggressive spirit,{10} who originally came from the mainland of Asia. They were sufficiently independent and warlike to resist the Spaniards who returned in 1565 with the intention of colonizing the islands and converting the heathens. Some estimates place the population of the Ladrones at this time very near 75,000. More than a century of continuous resistance to the missionaries and foreign soldiery, crippling inroads by white men's diseases, and steady migration to the Caroline Islands reduced the Chamorros to a mere handful by the time they were ready to submit to church and crown. In 1710, the first recorded census of the natives, who had all been forced to settle on Guam, showed that only 3,539 remained of the once flourishing population.{11}

Until 1898, the Marianas (the islands had been renamed for the Spanish queen in 1668) remained out of the main stream of world events. In that year, the USS Charleston, accompanying an expeditionary force bound for the Philippines, stopped off at Guam, informed the governor that the United States and Spain were at war, and promptly received the surrender of the defenseless island.{12} At the war's end the island became an American possession along with Puerto Rico and the Philippines for which a package price of 20 million dollars was paid. The rest of the Marianas, however, did not pass to control of the United States, and Spain sold them to Germany in 1899. Thus Guam became alien soil in a German sea. When World War I broke out, the Japanese seized the opportunity to expand and they occupied all the German territory north of the equator. The Versailles Treaty confirmed the seizure and the infant League of Nations gave Japan a mandate over these islands, effectively continuing the isolation of Guam.

Following World War I the U. S. Navy Department laid ambitious but abortive plans to make the island into a fortress guarding the routes to the Philippines and the Far East. The tremendous cost of such a project and an almost universal apathy towards military schemes combined to block these hopes. Not until Japan walked out of the League of Nations in 1935 did the average American become aware that something was wrong in the Pacific. The obvious reluctance of Japan to permit League inspection of the islands she held in trust stood as a warning for the future.{13} What little money the Navy had available in those depression years was spent to build up Pearl Harbor to insure that there would be at least one strong operating base in the Pacific. Guam remained virtually defenseless, a sitting duck waiting for the time the Japanese chose to strike.

While the military development of Guam had been held in abeyance, the lot of civilians on the island had improved considerably since the end of the Spanish rule. A presidential executive order of 23 December 1898 had placed the island under Navy administration and the next year the first Marine garrison took up its duties there. A naval officer, usually a captain, was designated governor of Guam and exercised his powers directly under the Secretary of the Navy. For all practical purposes, although his staff of advisors included native leaders, the naval officer was the supreme executive with final legislative power, and the appointment and removal of all officials rested in his hands. Fortunately, this government, especially in its later stages, expressed itself as a form of benevolent paternalism that evidently suited the Guamanians, who by this time were a racial mixture of the original islanders, Spanish, and Filipino colonists. As one naval officer put it, . . . the Chamorros never failed to show a kindly courtesy towards us. Their generous tolerance and compliance with our orders showed a most complaisant nature.{14}

By 1941 the native population had more than doubled from the original 9,000 that had been on the island when the Navy took over. About half of the people lived in the capital at Agana and another 3,000 in villages within ten miles' radius. The balance of the population was spread out in coastal villages and farming areas, with the greater percentage in the south. Fewer than 3,000 chose to live on the inhospitable northern plateau.

Although nominally townsmen, many of the Guamanians spent a great deal of their time working coconut plantations, rice fields, and garden plots in the interior. Those who lived on the farms tilled their own small areas and raised a few chickens, pigs, goats, and cattle. With the average ranch being small, cows and horses of the entire community often grazed on communal pastureland near the village. On the larger ranches, in addition to extensive cattle raising, the natives grew the main agricultural products. Vegetables, rice, tropical fruits, copra, and meat were transported to markets by the widely-used two-wheeled carabao carts. Only the most prosperous ranchers could afford motor vehicles to carry their products to town.

Population growth, improved economic and political status, and a vastly increased measure of tolerance on the part of the government were not the only benefits of American rule. The water supply had been augmented in 1940-41 to provide for the Apra Harbor area and garrison and island population in the vicinity of Piti and Sumay. The Navy supervised improvement and maintenance of 85 miles{15} of two-way roads. They circled the southern half of the island except for a stretch from Agat to Umatac, where the beach furnished the best route for traveling. In the north, from Ritidian Point to Yigo, the jungle had blocked construction of the proposed Agana-Yigo coast road. Throughout the interior a web of trails and carabao-cart tracks connected the farming hamlets with the main coastal roads. Extensive efforts to make the island economically self-sufficient had been fostered by the naval governors who encouraged the development of local island industries and the export of copra, Guam's biggest money crop. The island's real prosperity, however, derived from the naval facilities maintained there. Piti Navy Yard, the Marine Barracks at Sumay, and the various government departments (schools, hospital, courts, police) employed a large number of Guamanians. These activities provided a market for most of the native products.

Although in 1941 Guam was only a fuelling station for ships making the long runs to the Orient, it did have considerable strategic importance for other reasons. The station of the trans-Pacific cable and the naval radio station at Agana made it a focal point of the communication network in the Pacific. The clippers of Pan American World Airways landing in Apra Harbor on the San Francisco-Manila-Hong Kong run provided an increasingly important link with the United States. Sites for airfields had been surveyed by late 1941, and plans were underway to initiate construction when the war broke out.{16}

The threatening situation in the Pacific had led the government to order the evacuation of all dependents from Guam, and the last of them left the island on 17 October 1941.{17} All classified matter was destroyed on 6 December and the island waited, as did all American Pacific outposts, for word of the outcome of the negotiations in Washington. At 0545, 8 December 1941,{18} the Governor, Captain George J. McMillin, USN, received word from the Commander-in-Chief, Asiatic Fleet, of the commencement of hostilities. Reinforcing the message were the first bombs from Saipan-based Japanese planes which fell at 0827.

The initial target was the mine sweeper USS Penguin, whose antiaircraft guns constituted the only weapons available to the garrison larger than .30 caliber machine guns. The attack continued throughout the daylight hours, with small flights of bombers hitting the various naval installations and strafing roads and villages. Agana was evacuated and the small number of enemy nationals rounded up and imprisoned. Among them were the Japanese who owned the largest and most popular saloons, where the sailors and Marines liked best to hang out and argue the fine points of their professions.{19} Any such pleasant memories were soon dispelled when the first casualties of the bombings arrived at the hospital near Agana. Damage to installations was fairly extensive with houses,{20} barracks, fuel supplies, and roads being hit repeatedly. Enemy planes sank the Penguin after she put up a creditable fight, and her survivors joined the garrison ashore.

At daylight, 9 December, the bombers came again and repeated the pattern of attacks on naval installations. The Insular Force Guard, about 80 men who had been organized in early 1941 as an infantry unit to augment the native naval militia,{21} mustered in Agana and made preparations to protect the government buildings. The rest of the Guam garrison, including the 28 Marines of the Insular Patrol (Police), remained at their posts throughout the island. On Orote Peninsula the complement of the Marine Barracks, Sumay (6 officers, 1 warrant officer, 118 enlisted Marines) under Lieutenant Colonel William K. MacNulty, took up positions in the butts of the rifle range on the Marine Reservation. The inadequate garrison of Guam made all possible preparations and waited for the Japanese assault.

About 0400, 10 December, flares appeared near Dungcas Beach above Agana and soon rifle fire could be heard in the plaza of the town. A Japanese naval landing party of about 400 men from the 5th Defense Force based on Saipan had run into the Guamanians of the Insular Guard who engaged them in a fire fight. About the same time the enemy's main force, a reinforced brigade of about 5,500 men, landed below Agat.{22}

Captain McMillin, aware of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, decided not to endanger the lives of civilians by holding out against such heavy odds. He surrendered the island to the Japanese naval commander shortly after 0600. Scattered fights continued throughout the day as the invaders spread out over the island, but the defenders could offer only token resistance against the conquerors. The bombings and the action after the enemy landing killed 21 civilian and military personnel and wounded many others. But the small loss suffered by the Americans and Japanese on 10 December 1941 gave little indication of the high price to be paid by both sides when United States forces retook the island two and a half years later.{23}

The enemy evacuated American members of the garrison to prison camps in Japan on 10 January 1942. Soon afterwards Japanese Army troops departed for Rabaul, and the Navy units that had been present at the surrender of the island remained to garrison and govern. At first, the yoke was light, with the Japanese making every effort to gain the good will of the natives. However, those regulations and changes put into effect seemed harsh to people accustomed to the easy-going American administration. Of great injury to the pride of the Guamanians was the changing of the name of their homeland to Omiyajima (Great Shrine Island) and that of their capital city to Akashi (Red or Bright Stone). In the same vein of keeping the populace always aware of the fact they no longer lived under American supervision, the military ordered schools to teach Japanese instead of English. Even with the institution of food rationing and a system of discipline whereby an entire family or community would receive punishment for the wrong-doings of an individual, the natives retained their attitude of watchful neutrality.

They were not happy, but life was endurable.

When the Japanese began to build up Guam's defenses, forced labor supplemented the work of their own construction units. Men, women, and children worked with their hands, and little else, on the airfields being rushed to completion. The Japanese recognized the value of the preliminary work and surveys done by the Americans and proceeded to build airfields on the sites selected on Orote, at Tiyan, and in the vicinity of Dededo.{24}But this activity