Japanese change fighting tactics
Display new strategy by resistance on Saipan
Washington (AP) –
The Japanese seem to have decided to fight harder – to have abandoned the tactics used in some instances of withdrawing from island bases with only minor resistance, or no resistance at all.
This is demonstrated emphatically in the disclosure by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Pacific Fleet Commander-in-Chief, that 9,752 U.S. troops have become casualties of war as a result of the enemy stand on Saipan.
And less than half of that 72-square-mile island in the Western Pacific Marianas groups is in American hands. Fighting – hard fighting – continues through the sugarcane fields and along the rolling hills of Saipan.
It is to the north that some even harder fighting may come than that already encountered by the 1,475 men who have died, 7,400 wounded and 878 missing in the battle for the island.
The Japanese have held Saipan for many years. In that time, they have prepared emplacements and defense positions that will be hard to take.
They can be expected to fight to the last. To lose the island – as they ultimately will – opens the Philippines, and more important, the Japanese homeland to attack by bombers based in the Marianas.