When American forces initiated the invasion of Saipan on the 15th of June 1944, it was the World War II Pacific theater’s version of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in Europe and was equally important to the Allied war effort.
Saipan represented the first Japanese “homeland” territory under threat in the Pacific, and the fall of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands chain would result in Tokyo being within B29 bombing range. Indeed, once the islands were taken work immediately began on Tinian just south of Saipan to build what was then the largest airport in the world – made specifically for B29s to bomb the Japanese home islands.
Moreover, the B29’s that ended up dropping the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare – and which finally brought an end to the bloody war in the Pacific – took off from those very runways.
The Japanese fully understood the importance of stopping the American advancement and as such were committed to fight nearly to the last man before the island was finally taken by July 9th 1944.
The initial amphibious landings and subsequent battle fronts in the south western beach areas resulted in a push from the south of the island to the north. The Japanese had effectively brainwashed the local citizens into thinking that death was better than being subjected to American “torture” were the Japanese to lose the island. As a result, literally thousands of civilians jumped to their deaths from high cliffs as the battle pushed northwards – some at Suicide Cliff in the northern part of the island, and the rest at Banzai Cliff at the very edge of the northern coast.
Today there exists an impressive array of monuments in these two areas where so many ended their lives, placed here by various organizations across the decades since the battle. They stand as a powerful reminder of both how reverent humans can be as well as how horribly violent and savage during times of armed conflict. The messages of the monuments are largely the same, a mourning of who lost their lives on this island as well as an appeal to never wage another of these wars again…
Suicide Cliff:
Banzai Cliff:
Traveling the untamed lands of the Far East, up to the very edge of the known world…