June, 1944.
D-Day. The ramp drops,
signalling the start of an invasion that will determine the fate of the war. In the next hour, 8,000 American troops
will hit the beach. Many in the first wave will die. But when the ramp drops,
what emerges isn't an infantry platoon, it's a line of amphibious tanks. And the target of this D-Day
isn't Normandy, it's Saipan. This series is brought to you
by World of Tanks PC. Check out the game at the link below and use the invite code FORAGER
for extra goodies. An engine roars. An amphibious vehicle lurches down
the ramp and drops into the sea, chugging forward. It's slow and heavy,
this converted transport. Light armour plates weigh it down, and a stubby 75mm cannon thrusts out
of its open-topped turret. The crew looks back to see a line of
their fellow landing vehicles, LVTs, plunging into the sea each time a wave
swells beneath the landing ship. One misjudges and drives
into a wave trough. It drops twenty feet and splashes down
like a brick, sunk with all hands. The crew winces.
Each vehicle has 24 men aboard. The Marines have nicknamed them
amtracs, "amphibious tractors". Cannon-armed, hardened amtracs like
the one this crew drives are an amtank. The amtank plows toward Saipan,
churning the rough water. The crew sees flashes on the mountain,
Japanese artillery. Shells throw waterspouts
twenty feet high. An LVT behind them disintegrates. "Hold on!" the driver screams. He downshifts. Treads bite coral and the amtank
lurches up on the reef. For a heart-stopping moment it feels
like they'll go over backward, but then they're onto the shelf,
moving faster but exposed. Mortars drop around them. Machine gun
bullets ping the front armour. The amtank next to them explodes.
Then they drop into the calm lagoon. The crew clenches their teeth, thinking of what's ahead for the Marines
in the transport behind. First, the beach, then the brush, then the towns, sugarcane fields
and caves. Only then could they climb that mountain
and silence the artillery. The fighting was expected to be so close,
some Marines were carrying shotguns. The amtrac transports are supposed to
advance a thousand yards inland today. But for that to happen, the lead amtanks need to assault
the enemy emplacements on the beach. They begin to fire. The crew hears
the shifting grind of sand. The amtank lurches onto the shore
and up to the tree line. Machine gun bullets ping its turret armour
and zip through the hull. The gunner rotates the turret and answers
with a shell, cracking the pillbox open. He glimpses a Japanese light tank
through the trees, then the nose of the amtank
plunges forward. Stuck, its rear in the air.
An anti-tank ditch. The crew grabs their rifles and bails, from now on, they're infantry. For the first time in the war, Americans
have landed on Japanese soil. This battle would decide the fate
of the Pacific War. That's what they'd been told
in their briefing. And it was no lie. Saipan was the most heavily fortified
of the Northern Mariana Islands, and had been Japanese territory
since 1919. But it wasn't the island's sugarcane
industry America was after. It was their airfields. Because a B-29 Superfortress
launched from Saipan could strike the Japanese homeland, opening it to the kind of
sustained strategic bombing that was currently pounding Germany. And so, the US had sent an enormous
fleet to invade an island that was only twelve miles long
and five across. And on the other side of the beaches concealed in brush, emplacements,
and caves the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army
and Navy knew exactly why these Americans
had come. Their commander, Lieutenant General
Saito Yoshitsugu, had made that clear. Saipan was home soil for them,
for some, quite literally. Soldiers that spent time there tended to
marry into the Japanese settler families. And even those whose families
lay far away in Japan knew that this battle was to defend their
loved ones from American bombs. But they're under-strengthed
and under-equipped. American submarines had sunk whole
convoys full of reinforcements, weapons, and construction materials
meant to harden Saipan. But that was too late
to worry about now. Now their plan is to attack. Pound these Marines with artillery, then counterattack
and push them into the sea. If that failed, they would go inland and
defend every inch of ground to the death. The 2nd Marine Division
is doing badly. Japanese artillery had waited
until the Marines, disordered by currents
and incoming fire, had stacked up on the congested shore
before opening up. Their thin-skinned amtracs
have turned into easy targets, and some abandoned them
before even reaching shore. Units are disoriented
and mixed together. Japanese snipers kill officers
left and right. By the end of the day, five of the seven battalions in the 2nd
Marines have lost their commander. Some units suffer 35% casualties. Swamped in blood, flying sand,
and burning tanks, Marines form ad-hoc fireteams to push forward into
the machine gun and sniper fire. They scratch foxholes in the sand to
shield themselves from mortars. Between them, amtanks duel
with Japanese Type-95s. Then the counter-thrust
hits their lines. Down the coast, the 4th Marines
are doing better. Their landings haven't stacked up and amtracs are able to push
hundreds of yards inland. Some stop to evacuate
native Chamorro Islanders. But the narrow roads force the amtracs
and amtanks to drive single-file, easy prey for artillery, tanks
and mortars. Lines of burning amtracs choke the roads
as they make their way toward the sugar-refining town
of Charan Kanoa. By nightfall, it's clear no one will make
their first-day objective. The Marines have taken over
2,000 casualties by sundown. Over twenty amtracs have gone down
in the assault, with one armoured platoon
suffering 40% losses. The Marines begin a fitful night, each two-man foxhole team
taking turns napping while the other watches for the
black-painted infiltrators that sometimes slip behind
the lines with knives. They're awakened by a scream:
"Banzai! Banzai!" General Saito's counterattack has arrived. Soldiers charge out of the darkness,
waving swords, and firing pistols
and submachine guns. Some leap into Marine foxholes,
guns blazing and bayonets fixed. Japanese tanks rev toward
the beachhead. Machine gunners decimate
the incoming attackers. The USS California, wounded at
Pearl Harbor, drops artillery in support. The Marines repulse the charge under
the white glow of naval star shells. Seven hundred Japanese soldiers die
in the determined, but futile, assault. With that, D-Day ended on Saipan. But despite the brutality
of the first day's fighting, 20,000 Marines are now ashore.
Some of them are Codetalkers, Navajo radiomen,
recruited off the reservations, who speak an unbreakable cipher
based on their own language. Throughout the battle they'll help direct
naval gunfire and relay secret orders. And crucially, the Shermans arrive. Throughout the second day,
the tanks pushed forward, neutralizing artillery emplacements
and machine guns, though not without losses.
When one Sherman was immobilized, its commander, Gunnery Sergeant Robert
McCard, remained inside, directing fire. Nearly overrun, he ordered
his crew to evacuate. He lobbed grenades
to cover their retreat, then dismounted
with the tank's machinegun to hold off the oncoming attack. He received a posthumous
Medal of Honor. By the end of Day Two,
there had been hard progress. And the exhausted Americans settled
in for another watchful night. Then at 0330,
the Marines heard engines. The men of the Imperial Japanese Army's
9th Tank Regiment race down from the foothills
of the mountain. They've received an order from Tokyo: the fate of the Japanese Empire
rests in their hands. They must destroy the enemy. Their commander has promised
to defend this bulwark of the Pacific if it costs ten-thousand deaths. And so the 9th Regiment has
scratched up every tank it can find to drive a wedge in
the American beachhead. Thirty-seven tanks,
Type-97 mediums in the lead, Type 95s follow. Infantry squads ride on their backs
and charge behind. They power forward into US machinegun
and artillery fire, running directly over Marine foxholes
and in among their lines. But the 6th Marines are ready. They'd survived a tank assault
the night before. Fearing it would happen again,
they'd requested backup. Shermans and halftracks surge forward
to meet the attack. Cannons light the night, but the infantry
will decide this battle. As the first Type 97
runs over a Marine foxhole, the men inside duck
as it passes overhead, then emerge with the long tube
of a bazooka. They put a round
into its weak rear armour. When it slews to a stop, flaming,
they hunt for another target. Marine bazookas fire point-blank,
holing tanks with each round. The line descends into anarchy
as armour, infantry, and artillery fight a 360-degree brawl, lit by the fires of burning vehicles. And as each wave of tanks goes down,
more emerge from the shadows. Confused by the smoke and swirl
of combat, Japanese crews keep opening their
hatches to get their bearings. When they do,
Marines leap onto the tanks, shooting the exposed men and shoving incendiary grenades
into the open hatches. Within 45 minutes, the 6th Marines
have destroyed twenty-four tanks, with five others falling to neighbouring units.
As the sun begins to rise, they realise that they've just stopped the
largest Japanese tank assault of the war, and wiped out the majority of
Imperial armour on Saipan. But there was no celebration. The next morning the Marines
pushed forward again, through waist-deep swamps
and cane fields. They entered the shell-wrecked town
of Charan Kanoa, fighting house-to-house,
shotgun against bayonet. And the next morning, they looked back
to find an empty ocean. The Navy was gone. Rumors spread that the fleet
had abandoned them. Now it was just two armies fighting
chest-to-chest, on an island five miles wide. Once again, big thanks to everyone
at World of Tanks PC for sponsoring this episode. If you think that looks as awesome
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Great video! This had me on the edge of my seat! Anyone have any favorites I should check out from this channel?