The Free Lance-Star (June 19, 1944)
Japs repulsed in assault on Saipan
Powerful blows being struck over wide area of South Pacific
USPACFLT HQ, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (AP) –
U.S. soldiers and Marines, fighting their way through hot cane fields halfway across Saipan Island in the Marianas after repelling Japanese assaults by tanks and by landing craft, drove down toward the island’s principal harbor and naval base at Magicienne Bay today.
Slightly more than 100 miles southward, U.S. warships bombarded Guam heavily for the first time in the war. Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, in announcing that this former American base had been shelled last Thursday, gave no indication as to whether an invasion was in prospect.
Fifteen hundred miles to the south, just below the equator, Mitchell medium bombers and escorting P-38 fighters temporarily neutralized Japan’s last remaining effective air base in New Guinea. They destroyed 50 enemy planes at Sorong and sank five enemy merchantmen and half a dozen smaller vessels.
Nimitz also announced that Army Liberators and Navy Venturas bombed Matsuwa, Paramushiru, Shimushiru and Shumushu Islands in the Kuril chain Wednesday and Thursday and shot down one of 34 intercepting planes.
Hit other islands
Radio Tokyo reported that hundreds of bombers and fighters attacked two islands in the Kazan group, 750 miles northwest of Saipan, Friday. U.S. planes raided the Kazan and Bonin Islands for the first time on Wednesday, destroying 47 Japanese planes and sinking or damaging more than a dozen ships or small watercraft.
The Saipan beachhead established by Marines, with the support of Army infantry units, at last reports extended from Agingan Point on the southwestern tip, where the Americans landed last Wednesday, five and a half miles up the west coast almost to Garapan, the island’s largest town.
Japanese units strongly counterattacked with tanks before dawn Friday, after the Yanks had pushed north and east for two miles and captured the coastal village and airstrip of Charan Kanoa and the inland town of Hinashisu, more than halfway across the island.
Holding staunchly, the Americans forced the enemy back, inflicting heavy casualties and knocking out 25 Nipponese tanks.
Early Saturday, the Japanese attempted new tactics, a landing assault south of Garapan.
Troop barges sunk
Headquarters said the attempt was smashed and 13 troop-laden enemy barges destroyed. There was no indication whether the barges came from Saipan (where an estimated 30,000 Japanese are entrenched) or from Tinian Island three miles to the south.
U.S. warships shelled the island in support of the invasion. The fighting line at last reports skirted the western edge of the 3,600-foot Aslito Airstrip and was less than three miles from Magicienne Bay on the east coast.
Among the warships protecting the U.S. force on Saipan was a World War I destroyer converted into a destroyer transport. Nimitz said this warship, unaided, sank five enemy coastal freighters. Twenty-nine survivors were captured.