Assault on Saipan

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Article abstract: Type of action: Amphibious assault in World War II. Result: U.S. capture of the island.

At 8:00 a.m. on June 15, 1944, 40,000 marines of the Second and Fourth Marine Divisions, led by Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, began amphibious landings on beaches around Garapan, Saipan’s principal city, with the army’s Twenty-seventh Division in reserve. The landing followed four days of bombardment from the invasion fleet, during which U.S. forces won air superiority.

Awaiting the marines were 31,650 Japanese, many of them untested and...

[The entire page is 302 words long]

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