Battle of Tinian

Battle of Tinian
Part of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign of the Pacific Theater (World War II)
An LVT churns through the surf bound for beaches of Tinian
Date 24 July – 1 August 1944 (1 week and 1 day) Location Tinian, Mariana Islands (modern-day Northern Mariana Islands, USA) Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Harry Schmidt Thomas E. Watson Clifton B. Cates	Kiyochi Ogata † Kakuji Kakuta † Goichi Oie †
Units involved
V Amphibious Corps 2nd Marine Division 4th Marine Division XXIV Corps Artillery	50th Infantry Regiment 56th Naval Guard Force
Strength
40,000	9,000
Casualties and losses
Ashore: 290 killed 1,515 wounded 24 missing Afloat: 63 killed 177 wounded	5,745 dead 404 captured
2,610 civilians dead

The Battle of Tinian was part of the Pacific campaign of World War II. It was fought between the United States and Japan on the island of Tinian in the Mariana Islands from 24 July until 1 August 1944. The battle saw napalm used for the first time.

At the Cairo Conference in December 1943, the US and British Combined Chiefs of Staff endorsed a two-pronged attack through the Central Pacific and Southwest Pacific Areas. On 12 March 1944, the Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, was directed to neutralize Truk and occupy the Mariana Islands. The Mariana Islands were targeted because of their location astride the Japanese line of communications. Tinian lay too close to Saipan to allow it to be bypassed and remain in Japanese hands. Following the conclusion of the Battle of Saipan on 9 July, Major General Harry Schmidt's V Amphibious Corps began preparations to invade nearby Tinian. The Japanese defending the island were commanded by Colonel Kiyochi Ogata, the commander of the 50th Infantry Regiment. This regiment was part of the 5,000 Army troops on the island. There were also about 4,000 Imperial Japanese Navy personnel on Tinian, the main force being the 56th Naval Guard Force, under the command of Captain Goichi Oie. Most of the island was surrounded by coral cliffs, so Ogata concentrated his forces on the southwest of the island, where the best landing beaches were located.

Major General Clifton B. Cates's 4th Marine Division landed on Tinian on 24 July 1944, supported by naval bombardment and the guns of the XXIV Corps Artillery, firing across the strait from Saipan. Instead of landing in the southwest, they landed on the northwest coast, where there were two small beaches that were lightly defended. These beaches were flanked by low coral cliffs that the marines were able to surmount with the aid of ramps mounted on modified amphibious tractors (LVTs). A successful feint in the southwest by Major General Thomas E. Watson's 2nd Marine Division distracted defenders from the actual landing site on the north of the island. The 2nd Marine Division then landed behind the 4th Marine Division. The weather worsened on 28 July, damaging the pontoon causeways and interrupting the unloading of supplies, but on 30 July the 4th Marine Division occupied Tinian Town and the airfield. Japanese remnants conducted a last stand in the caves and ravines of a limestone ridge on the south portion of the island. Although the island was declared secure on 1 August, mopping up patrols continued into 1945.

Tinian became an important base for further US operations in the Pacific. North Field became operational in February 1945 and West Field in March. The Seabees built six 8,500-foot (2,600 m) runways for the Twentieth Air Force's Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers. Bombers based on Tinian took part in the bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.