| Original caption: “As a jeep bears wounded yank to rear, bulldozer scoops grave for some Saipan Jap[anese].” At 0445 Hours on July 7, 1944, 3 weeks into the Battle of Saipan, thousands of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers charged the lines between the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment, hoping to exploit the lack of cohesiveness between the units. Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saitō (November 2, 1890 – July 10, 1944) ordered all able-bodied men to participate. All the available beer and sake were distributed to the participants. The gyokusai (“shattered jewels”), which the Americans called a Banzai charge, was the biggest of the Pacific War. It carried down the Tanapag plain and overran the 105th and into the 10th Marine Regiment’s M1 105 millimeter (4.1-inch) howitzer batteries, which depressed below 0 and fired directly into the oncoming Japanese before they destroyed and abandoned their weapons. The attack continued for some 12 hours before the Japanese were wiped out. The Japanese had advanced over 1,000 yards (900 meters) before they were stopped. Some 105th Regiment soldiers who the Japanese cut off were forced to swim to United States Navy destroyers offshore to survive. By 1800 hours on July 7, United States Army soldiers and Marines had regained all of the ground lost during the Banzai attack. The aftermath of the attack was horrific. The Japanese body count in front of the 105th’s position was 2,295, with another 2,016 dead to the rear. A total of 4,311 Japanese troops were killed during the July 7 banzai attack. The American losses were also high. The 1st and 2nd battalions of the 105th had nearly been wiped out, with 406 killed and an additional 512 wounded. 2 days later, on July 9, 1944, Saipan was declared secure, but the horror didn’t end there. In the days that followed, Marines watched helplessly as hundreds of Japanese civilians committed mass suicide by jumping off the island’s northern cliffs. Following the vicious fighting on July 7 and 8, there were literally thousands of dead Japanese soldiers lying on the Tanapag Plain. They needed to be buried immediately. 1 correspondent, who surveyed much of the battle area, wrote: “The whole area seemed to be a mass of stinking bodies, spilled guts, and brains.” Colonel M. Oakley Bidwell (February 4, 1909 – November 5, 2003), of Orlando, Florida, G-1 Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, 27th Infantry Division, who was in charge of the burial detail, remembered the scene as follows: “I don’t think I can draw a picture more horrible than my memory of Tanapag Plain. It appeared to be virtually solid, dead soldiers.” A creek ran through a shallow ravine, emptying into a beautiful turquoise-blue lagoon. The creek and its banks seemed filled with bodies. And while I watched, a giant crimson flower grew out of the mouth of the creek.” United States Army Private George F. Herman (December 21, 1920 – February 19, 2001) of Headquarters Company, 105th Infantry, remembered seeing “Jap bodies in the sun for a week until they were as big as sumo wrestlers and bursting like balloons.” Sergeant Stephen J. Behil (April 21, 1918 – November 15, 2002) from Binghamton, New York, remembers what it was like the day after the attack. On July 8, acting as a truck driver and bulldozer operator, he and another man from C Battery of the 249th Field Artillery went up to bury dead Japanese. Graves Registration people were separating the dead Americans from the dead Japanese. The bulldozers dug huge trenches and then pushed the stacks of dead Japanese soldiers into them and buried them in the mass graves. This image appeared in the August 28, 1944, issue of LIFE Magazine. It was nationally syndicated in mid-August. Photographer W. Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 – October 15, 1978) became a war correspondent photographer in September 1943. Smith flew with the American naval aircraft assaulting Truk in February 1944. He then photographed the invasions of Saipan, Guam, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Seriously wounded by a Japanese mortar in 1945, he recovered for 2 years before retaking photos. He continued to publish pictures in LIFE Magazine until 1955. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1512.jpg |
| Image Size | 994.32 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2560 x 2550 |
| Photographer | W. Eugene Smith |
| Photographer Title | United States Marine Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | July 9, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | Saipan |
| Country | Marianas |
| Archive | |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database