Word: saipan
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...former U.S. Naval Station at Piti. Casualties would have been heavy if the marines had landed there. Instead, they smartly flanked these and many other defenses. But the enemy was still no setup. He was fighting the same kind of savage rear-guard action he had fought on Saipan, where 21,036 Jap corpses had been buried, where 3,414 Americans were dead or missing...
Tanks on Tinian. North of Guam, 125 miles, lay another U.S.-Jap battlefield: 48-square-mile Tinian, only three miles from Saipan. On its comparatively level ground, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions deployed more tanks than had yet been seen on a Pacific island...
...farthest behind in the new, speeded-up schedule are fast, armed transports to carry troops, weapons and supplies for invasions. Just as badly needed are tankers, not so much because of any slump in building (and certainly not because of losses to enemy action), but because new bases like Saipan call for the hauling of a lot more fuel and gasoline over greater distances. Said Admiral Home: "It isn't the enemy but the rapid extension of our own operations that is putting the squeeze...
Devastating barrages like those laid down at Cherbourg, Saipan and Guam have eaten deep into the Navy's store of bombardment ammunition: 41,000 tons of shells have been fired at Jap and German shore defenses alone-230 times the total used to win the Spanish-American war. The need for rockets, for both ships and planes, is increasing. There is also a deficit in 40-mm. antiaircraft guns and in the ammunition they shoot...
World War II is the best-reported war in history, but its coverage is still far from perfect. Last week Editor & Publisher printed a vigorous letter from Saipan which illuminated one of the most serious shortcomings. The letter was from the Chicago Times's Correspondent Keith Wheeler. Excerpts...