The Marinas - Saipan, Tinan and Guam: A Pictorial Tribute (Paperback)

The American battle for the Mariana Islands in mid-1944 was an important step toward bringing Japan's industrial heartland within range of the U.S. Army Air Forces' new B-29 long-range bombers. Once the Marianas were secured and the airfields built, the B-29s could pound away at targets in Japan. And then there was the payback of Guam, an American possession that had fallen to the Japanese at the very start of the war, its tiny Marine garrison sent into captivity. For the Marines, retaking Guam would be the fulfillment of a blood oath. Even though these objectives figured prominently in prewar strategic planning, the necessities of the Pacific War left them waiting for two and a half years of hard battles in the Solomon Islands, then at Tarawa and the Marshall Islands. The air bases of the western Marshalls then had to be upgraded so that American land-based bombers could reconnoiter and soften Saipan, Tinian, Guam, and other Japanese bases in the Marianas. Exciting combat photographs from official Marine Corps archives, many never before published, supplemented with the expert narrative of military historian Eric Hammel, make "The Marianas" a fitting tribute to the Marines who fought their way toward Japan in the grueling Pacific campaign.