Yoshitsugu Saito-Samurai of Saipan

[zed]

Yoshitsugu Saito defended Saipan against a host of marine and army divisions for 2 months. His final attack almost succeeded.

[corbulo]

Because of his tenacious defense Holland Smith relieved Ralf Smith from command of the 27th INF Division. This caused a conflict between army and marine corps that went all the wa to Marshall vs King. Marshall buried the incident in the name of interservice cooperation, but promised the H. SMith would never comand army troops again.

[Jeremy Pritchard]

One wonders what might have happened had the 43rd Division been sent to Saipan sooner, and did not have a lot of its heavy equipment sunk en-route!

[zed]

Could very possibly have wiped out the invasion force. He also hesistated one day before he launched a counter attack, this was fatal as well. All in all Saipan was a close run thing for the allies, not a foregone conclusion. The Japanese were tenacious on the defense, if they just had not done the banzai attacks they would have held out much longer.

[Ranger-75]

Originally posted by zed
if they just had not done the banzai attacks they would have held out much longer.

This would be asking the Japanese not to be jappanese. It would be like asking the palastinians to stop suicide murder-bombings. It was just not their way.

[Jeremy Pritchard]

Originally posted by Ranger-75


This would be asking the Japanese not to be jappanese. It would be like asking the palastinians to stop suicide murder-bombings. It was just not their way.

It would also be like asking the Isreali military to stop bombing civilain suburbs when they are trying to kill one individual. It is not their way either. :rolleyes:

Please, lets keep in the theatre of topic and keep out of inflamatory current events.

[Culiacan Mexico]

Originally posted by Jeremy Pritchard
bombing civilain suburbs

No victory points for this like in Pac War?

[Ranger-75]

Originally posted by corbulo
Because of his tenacious defense Holland Smith relieved Ralf Smith from command of the 27th INF Division. This caused a conflict between army and marine corps that went all the wa to Marshall vs King. Marshall buried the incident in the name of interservice cooperation, but promised the H. SMith would never comand army troops again.

This was a case of "they were not so good but we were so bad". The 27th ID was in terrible condition - it's leadership was severely lacking at all levels - mainly in (I hate to have to admit this) the Officer corps.