The Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, also known as Campaign Plan Granite II, was an offensive launched by United States forces against Imperial Japanese forces in the Pacific Ocean between June and November 1944 during the Pacific War.[1] The campaign consisted of Operation Forager, which captured the Mariana Islands, and Operation Statemate, which captured Palau. Operation Causeway, the invasion of Taiwan was also planned but not executed.[2] The offensive, under the overall command of Chester W. 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.
The United States invasion force was supported by a massive combat force. The Fifth Fleet was commanded by 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 K. Turner, consisted of 56 attack transports, 84 landing craft and over 127,000 troops.[3]
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 home islands 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 and Angaur, both islands were finally secured by U.S. forces in November 1944, while the main Japanese garrison in the Palaus on Koror was passed by altogether, only to surrender in August 1945 with the Empire’s capitulation.
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.
^The Great Courses. World War II: The Pacific Theater. Lecture 14. Professor Craig Symonds
Bibliography
Books
D'Albas, Andrieu (1965). Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II. Devin-Adair Pub. ISBN0-8159-5302-X.
Denfeld, D. Colt (1997). Hold the Marianas: The Japanese Defense of the Mariana Islands. White Mane Pub. ISBN1-57249-014-4.
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. ISBN0-8032-1708-0.
Rottman, Gordon (2004). Saipan & Tinian 1944: Piercing the Japanese Empire. Campaign 137. illustrated by Howard Gerrard. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN1-84176-804-9.
Moran, Jim; Rottman, Gordon (2002). Peleliu 1944: The Forgotten Corner of Hell. Campaign 110. illustrated by Howard Gerrard. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN1-84176-512-0.
Wright, Derrick (2005). To the Far Side of Hell: The Battle for Peleliu, 1944. Fire Ant Books. ISBN0-8173-5281-3.
Reports
Headquarters of the Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Area (1944). Campaign Plan Granite II(PDF) (Report). Archived from the original(PDF) on 7 March 2024.
Hoffman, Major Carl W. USMC (1950), "Saipan: The Beginning of the End", USMC Historical Monograph, Historical Branch, United States Marine Corps – via Hyperwar Foundation
Gayle, Gordon D. (1996). "Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu". Marines in World War II Commemorative Series. Marine Corps Historical Center. Archived from the original on 1 January 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2006.
Hough, Frank O. (1950), "The Assault on Peleliu (The Seizure of Peleliu)", USMC Historical Monograph, Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, retrieved 19 December 2006 – via Hyperwar Foundation
Smith, Robert Ross (1996), "The Approach to the Philippines", United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific, United States Army Center of Military History – via Hyperwar Foundation
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