Mariana and Palau Islands campaign

The Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, also known as Operation Forager, was an offensive launched by United States forces against Imperial Japanese forces in the Mariana Islands and Palau in the Pacific Ocean between June and November 1944 during the Pacific War.[1] The United States offensive, under the overall command of Chester Nimitz, followed the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign and was intended to neutralize Japanese bases in the central Pacific, support the Allied drive to retake the Philippines, and provide bases for a strategic bombing campaign against Japan.

Mariana and Palau Islands campaign
Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II

A U.S. amphibious tractor loaded with Marines approaches Tinian during the U.S. landings on that island
DateJune – November 1944
Location
Mariana and Palau Islands, Pacific Ocean
Result American victory
Belligerents
 United States  Japan
Commanders and leaders
Chester Nimitz
Raymond A. Spruance
Richmond K. Turner
Holland Smith
Roy Geiger
Harry Schmidt
William H. Rupertus
Paul J. Mueller		 Yoshitsugu Saito †
Chuichi Nagumo †
Jisaburō Ozawa
Kakuji Kakuta †
Takeshi Takashina †
Hideyoshi Obata †
Kiyochi Ogata †
Sadae Inoue
Kunio Nakagawa †
Strength
128,000
600+ ships		 71,000
Casualties and losses
8,125 killed and missing 67,000+ killed

The United States invasion force was supported by a massive combat force. The Fifth Fleet was commanded by Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance. Task Force 58, commanded by Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, consisted of 15 carriers, 7 battleships, 11 cruisers, 86 destroyers and over 900 planes. The invasion force, commanded by Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, consisted of 56 attack transports, 84 landing craft and over 127,000 troops.[2]

Beginning the offensive, United States Marine Corps and United States Army forces, with support from the United States Navy, executed landings on Saipan in June 1944. In response, the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet sortied to attack the U.S. Navy fleet supporting the landings. In the resulting aircraft carrier Battle of the Philippine Sea (the so-called "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot") on 19–20 June, the Japanese naval forces were decisively defeated with heavy and irreplaceable losses to their carrier-borne and land-based aircraft.

U.S. forces executed landings on Saipan in June 1944 and Guam and Tinian in July 1944. After heavy fighting, Saipan was secured in July and Guam and Tinian in August 1944. The U.S. then constructed airfields on Saipan and Tinian where B-29s were based to conduct strategic bombing missions against the Japanese mainland until the end of World War II, including the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the meantime, in order to secure the flank for U.S. forces preparing to attack Japanese forces in the Philippines, in September 1944, U.S. Marine and Army forces landed on the islands of Peleliu and Angaur in Palau. After heavy and intense combat on Peleliu, the island was finally secured by U.S. forces in November 1944.

Following their landings in the Mariana and Palau Islands, Allied forces continued their ultimately successful campaign against Japan by landing in the Philippines in October 1944 and the Volcano and Ryukyu Islands beginning in January 1945.

Operations

See also

References
  1. "Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam (Operation in Forager)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  2. The Great Courses. World War II: The Pacific Theater.  Lecture 14.  Professor Craig Symonds

Books
  • D'Albas, Andrieu (1965). Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II. Devin-Adair Pub. ISBN 0-8159-5302-X.
  • Denfeld, D. Colt (1997). Hold the Marianas: The Japanese Defense of the Mariana Islands. White Mane Pub. ISBN 1-57249-014-4.
  • Drea, Edward J. (1998). "An Allied Interpretation of the Pacific War". In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1708-0.
  • Dull, Paul S. (1978). A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941–1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-097-1.
  • Gailey, Harry (1988). The Liberation of Guam 21 July–10 August. Novato, California, U.S.A.: Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-651-X.
  • Gailey, Harry (1984). Peleliu: 1944. Nautical & Aviation Pub Co of Amer. ISBN 0-933852-41-X.
  • Goldberg, Harold J. (2007). D-day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34869-2.
  • Hallas, James H. (1994). The Devil's Anvil: The Assault on Peleliu. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-94646-0.
  • Hornfischer, James D. (2016). The Fleet at Flood Tide: The U.S. at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0345548726.
  • Morison, Samuel Eliot (2001) [1953]. New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944–August 1944. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol 8 (reissue ed.). Champaign, Illinois, US: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-07038-0.
  • O'Brien, Francis A. (2003). Battling for Saipan. Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-804-0.
  • Ross, Bill D. (1991). Peleliu: Tragic Triumph. Random House. ISBN 0-394-56588-6.
  • Rottman, Gordon (2004). Saipan & Tinian 1944: Piercing the Japanese Empire. Campaign 137. illustrated by Howard Gerrard. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-804-9.
  • Moran, Jim; Rottman, Gordon (2002). Peleliu 1944: The Forgotten Corner of Hell. Campaign 110. illustrated by Howard Gerrard. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-512-0.
  • Sloan, Bill (2005). Brotherhood of Heroes: The Marines at Peleliu, 1944: The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-6009-0.
  • Smith, Douglas V. (2006). Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm's Way. U.S. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-794-8.
  • Toll, Ian W. (2015). The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • Wright, Derrick (2005). To the Far Side of Hell: The Battle for Peleliu, 1944. Fire Ant Books. ISBN 0-8173-5281-3.

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