Reference Entry
MARINE LANDINGS ON TINIAN
Just days after Guam, another carefully planned amphibious assault unfolded on the nearby island of Tinian. American planners studied Japanese defenses and concluded that a direct assault on the obvious beaches would be too costly, so they chose two much smaller, less expected landing sites on Tinian’s northwest coast. Marines went ashore across those narrow strips of sand using specialized landing craft and intense naval gunfire to suppress enemy positions above the cliffs.
Dated Historical Context
A RECORDED MOMENT IN HISTORY
Marine landings on Tinian
Just days after Guam, another carefully planned amphibious assault unfolded on the nearby island of Tinian. American planners studied Japanese defenses and concluded that a direct assault on the obvious beaches would be too costly, so they chose two much smaller, less expected landing sites on Tinian’s northwest coast. Marines went ashore across those narrow strips of sand using specialized landing craft and intense naval gunfire to suppress enemy positions above the cliffs. Once established, they quickly expanded the beachhead and began rolling up Japanese defenses, using combined arms tactics honed in earlier Pacific campaigns. Within days, organized resistance collapsed, and engineers turned to the larger purpose of the operation: building enormous airfields across Tinian’s flat coral plain. Those runways would soon host B-29 bombers conducting long-range raids on the Japanese home islands, including the aircraft that carried the first atomic bombs, making Tinian a quiet but decisive piece of the strategic bombing campaign’s backbone.
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