History That Doesn't Suck - 210: The Pacific War 1944: From the Cairo Conference to the Marianas Turkey Shoot

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

“If we ever lose Saipan, repeated air attacks on Tokyo will follow. No matter what it takes, we have to hold there.”As Operation Cartwheel neutralizes Japanese forces on Rabaul, American and British leaders meet with “Forgotten Allies” in Cairo—namely China’s nationalist leader Chiang Kai Shek and his diplomat wife Soong Mei-ling. The relentless pressure on Japan continues as heroes like “Merrill’s Marauders" hack through Burma’s jungles, securing vital supply lines and isolating the Japanese. Desperation leads to more bonsai attacks and even civilian suicides. More islands fall. The conflict reaches a boiling point at the "Marianas Turkey Shoot," and the brutal battle for Saipan, both of which aim to place Tokyo within bombing range and clear the path for Doug to return to the Philippines.____Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com andgo deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendationsjoin discussions in our Facebook communityget news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette come see a live showget HTDS merchor become an HTDS premium member for episodes and other perks.HTDS is part of Audacy media network. Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Contact Audacyinc.com.

It's December 20th, 1941. We're in southwestern China, in the Yunnan province's capital city of Kunming, and Claire Lee-Schanalt is at his newly established headquarters, likely pouring over maps and charts, doing all he can to make sure his volunteer pilots are ready to strike the Japanese Air Force the moment they get the chance. See Claire, or Old Leatherface, as the nearly 50-year-old part-of-hearing World War I vet,

and feisty Louisianaan is. known. May have been pressed to retire from the U.S. Army Air Corps a few years back, but he was quick to accept an offer abroad. Now, he holds the rank of Colonel in the Chinese Air Force. Nor is he the only American here. Back in April, President Franklin Roosevelt quietly authorized reserve officers and enlisted men in the U.S. military to resign if they wanted to join the ranks of old leather faces flyboys in China, the American Volunteer Group, or the AVG. With Japan having laid waste to China for years at this point, as we learned back in episode 193, it was a slick way to get American flyers into Chinese skies without the U.S. declaring war

on Japan. That loophole doesn't feel so important a little less than two weeks out from the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, but no matter. What's important in the moment is this. The AVG is in China, and now, with Kunming still reeling from a deadly bombing just two days ago. Old Leatherface has brought his boys to town, ready to give Japan a fight, if they again dare to strike this vital city through which American Len Lease and other foreign supplies supporting the embattled Republic of China flow. At 9.45 a.m., Claire's phone rings. It's

commander of the Chinese 5th Air Force and Chief of Staff for the AVG, Colonel Wang Shumim. Ten Japanese bombers crossed the Yunnan border at Lau Kai, heading northwest. Claire snaps to it as his pilot scrambled. This is it. This is the American volunteer group's moment. It's time to inspire the beleaguered Chinese people with a forceful show of American might, or to confirm that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was but the beginning of the end for all who oppose the Empire of the Rising Sun. No pressure. Old Leather Face has a red flare fired, the signal for takeoff. And with that, 8 to 10 Curtis P.40s from the Panda Bear, A.K.A.A.A. a second squadron, each one likely wearing the APG's fierce shark-tooth paint job under its roaring single engine, tear down the runway.

Taken to the sky, they form two formations, one of which ascends to provide top cover patrolling over the city. The other off to hunt. Both groups soon disappear into the clouds. On the ground, Claire listens as one of his squad leaders. Jack Newkirk radios back. Shark Finn Blue calling base, bandit-sided 60 miles east. Attacking. Then, silence. Minutes pass. Still silence.

With a heavy heart, Claire calls up the Adam and Eve's first squadron. Fourteen shark-toothed P-40s tear into the sky. Charlie Bond is thrilled, as the well-trained but fresh to the fight pilot will later write. This time, it was the real thing. Numbering among the first squadron reinforcements, he's soaring at roughly 20,000 feet, somewhere to the southeast of Kunin, peering through the clouds, looking for the enemy,

when, yes, that's them. Ten Mitsubishi type 97 bombers. In turn, the Japanese bombers spot the Americans. Immediately they cut from their flight path and turned back toward their base at Hanoi. But Charlie and the rest of the Adam and Eves are in hot pursuit, pushing to full throttle or close to it, indicating a speed of 225 miles per hour.

The P-40's grinning shark teeth grow closer and closer to the fleeing Japanese tails. Caught somewhere between the nerves and excitement of his first taste of battle, Charlie double-checked his oxygen mask and gun switch. He homes in, feels his heart pounding, and... What? Nothing? Oh, shoot. The nervous pilot checked his gun so many times he lost. Locked it.

Too close to the Japanese to do anything but break off, he circles back around. This time, he's got it. Charlie lets it rip. His 50-cal machine gun tears at the Japanese bombers, right as other Americans do the same. They're on top of each other. It's nothing short of a miracle that the Americans don't kill one another with friendly fire. Meanwhile, the Japanese fire back in kind. But as they do, two are smoking.

and the Americans continue to hit the lot of them from every direction. With fuel getting low, Adam and Eve leader, Robert Sandy Sandel, calls his boys off. They fly back to Cooney. And oh, are these young flyboys ecstatic? While the full outcome of this engagement is yet to be known, they clearly got the better of the Japanese, which feels so good right after Pearl Harbor. And they've sent a clear message to friend and foe alike. Japan's open season bombings on China are over. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck.

I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Of the 10 Mitsubishi bombers that set out to strike Kuhn Ming that morning, only one makes it back unscathed. Claire Lee Schenelt is rightly proud of his American volunteer group, or the Flying Tigers, as the press soon nicknames them. All together, the Flying Tigers down upwards of three. 300 enemy aircraft and fight more than 50 air battles on behalf of China. According to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, they win every single one. The unit disbands on July 4, 1942. Shortly after the long-shot, Doolittle Raid, we heard about in episode 193, and not for any failure, but because, well, Uncle Sam wants his flyboys

back, and most return to their respective branches. China, or the forgotten, ally, as historian Ron and Mittir so aptly describes it, is all too often forgotten in our account of World War II. Today, it enters our American story as President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet the nation's leader in Cairo, Egypt. And since we want to be well prepared for that sit-down, we'll start with some recent Chinese history that will help us better understand its leader, the Generalissimo Jung Kai Sheck, a man just as if not more afraid of internal challenges from Mao Zedong as he is of any challenge from Japan. And with that understanding, we'll then join the Generalissimo in Cairo and meet his American advisor, Vinaiger Joe Stillwell,

as well as one of his generals, Frank Merrill, who takes command of an elite force sent to carve a supply path from Burma or Myanmar into China. But with much to do, we won't stay in Burma. Rather, we'll head back to the Pacific Ocean, where General Douglas MacArthur and his Navy buddy Admiral William Bolhawalsy are hopping toward the end of Operation Cartwheel, which is to say they're choking off Japan's stronghold on Rabal. We'll do plenty of hopping ourselves as we wrap up this campaign, but we'll join Doug as he braves the dangers of Los Negros Island. Finally, as Operation Cartwheel finishes its last turn, we'll turn to the Central Pacific, where the Japanese are looking to fulfill their dream of a gigantic, decisive sea battle, one that will take place and

amid the American invasion of the Mariana Islands. We'll soar through the skies with Ace pilot Alex Verashu, then witnessed the brutal fight for Saipan, an island that will put the Americans within bombing range of the Emperor in Tokyo himself. So much to do, so little time. So let's not waste a minute, and we begin by backing things up to get acquainted with our forgotten ally. Rewind.

The Qing Dynasty's collapse takes generations. But here it is in just a few beats. Between opium wars, foreign powers carving out spheres of influence, and emptying treasury, and a haunt majority tired of a ruling Manchu minority, the sick man of Asia, as turn of the century China is known, is already on the brink. A brink that doesn't hold as the regent-run court of the young emperor Pui tries to shore up its financial woes by nationalizing the railroads in 1911. It's a play that pushes local leaders over the edge, leading one province-outhings, after another to declare independence and the boy emperor to abdicate.

This ends nearly three centuries of Qing rule and more than 2,000 years of a Chinese empire. Back from exile, revolutionary leader Sun Yud Sen has three principles that he believes can rebuild China. One, anti-imperialist nationalism. Two, democracy. And three, a form of socialism called the people's livelihood. Sun is liked and embraced as, the father of the nation. But that's no match for an army, specifically General Yuan Shrikai's army. Sun soon finds himself bowing out to this general with imperial ambitions. But the power vacuum

proves too much for Yuan as well, who, after gutting Sun's infant republic, overreaches for a crown, fails and dies in 1916. Thus it is that, as World War I rages and Japan happily gobbles up territory, China is thrown into a warlord era. And it's in this warlord chaos that two heirs of sons' three principles, nationalist Jung Kai Sheck and communist Mao Zedong, learn the same lesson. Get power, hold power. We now enter the 1920s.

A young library assistant at Peking University, Mao Zedong becomes a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP. Now, I covered Marxism in episode 151, and its Leninist and Stalinist subsets in 186. But let's recall that Karl Marx was about the city-dwelling working class rising against the bourgeoisie, not an agricultural peasantry uprising, which is why it matters that this peasant-born library assistant is increasingly looking to the peasants for his revolution. Heresy to an old-school Marxist, but log this idea away.

Mao's peasantry thinking is a key part of his own developing take. on communism, yet another subset that will come to call Maoism. In the same decade, Zheng Kai Shek is running hard and fast with the Guameng Dong Party, that is, the Nationalists. More than that, he's a military man, one trained in China and Japan, and as the commandant of the Huang Poa Military Academy as of 1924, he's got youthful leaders looking to him. These two separate children of Sunyat-Syghur, Sen's principles, the Nationalists and the Communists, managed to play together in the sandbox for the next few years. Mao even runs propaganda for the Nationalists, while Zhang launches

his northern expedition against the warlord threat in 1926. Through their alliance, the United Front, the Communists and Nationalists are bringing the warlord era to an end. But as the external threats recede, a question arises among these Sun Yat-Sen descending siblings. Who will receive the full inheritance? Yang gets the better of the communists in 1927, slaughtering thousands in the Shanghai massacre and leaving the communists all but broken. This student of the 1910's brutal lessons on power

appears to have done his homework, and by 1928, Zhang is the effective leader of a mostly unified China. He is, as the West calls him, the Generalissimo. But all but broken isn't broken. And the Generalissimo, knows it. This is a civil war. Years pass. As they do, Jung Kajek's drive, his obsession, with stomping out this lingering threat, grows just as Mao's peasant-powered influence does.

Jung pushes for a full-on communist hunt, which Mao answers by carrying out an incredible retreat, generally thought to be 6,000 miles, known as the Long March. By its end in 1935, Mao emerges as the paramount leader of China's communists. Nationalist leaders are frustrated with Jung Kai Sheck. Imperial Japan has been carving off parts of northern China since 1931, yet here he is still more focused on fighting communists than the external threat. In short, they feel the General Isimo's eye is on the wrong ball, and in December 1936, his own generals effectively kidnap him, a moment known as the Shiaan incident,

and forced Zhang to give up his self. Civil War and take on divided China's shared enemy of Japan. Indeed, with the Rising Sun's aggression leading to the Marco Polo Bridge and rape of Nanjing the next year, 1997, which I'll leave there since we detailed these stories in episode 193, it's time to let the feud sit for now. A second United Front now arises as World War II begins in the Pacific. A tenuously unified China under Zhang's leadership holds against Japan. nonetheless, China's resources are dwindling.

It needs help, help that starts coming from America indirectly, and even individually. Recently retired U.S. Army Air Corps major, Claire Lee-Chanalt, becomes an advisor in 1937. Yes, the eventual leader of the Flying Tigers we met in this episode's opening. Meanwhile, the U.S. becomes involved in 1940, when President Franklin Roosevelt's lend lease begin supporting nationalist to China. And of course, in December, 1941, the United States gets far more direct in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor

by declaring war on Japan. Ah, but America's entry raises a question. Why send so many supplies to China when American boys need them as well? General Joseph Stillwell, or Vinegar Joe, as the general's known, for his perpetually sour disposition, thinks the U.S. should slow its supply-giving role.

especially since the mal-obsessed Generalissimo still isn't fully focused on Japan. Misalignments of priorities continue as the war wears on. But perhaps the Generalissimo and his fellow Allied leaders can come together in spirit with an in-person meeting. That's the hope at any rate, as he heads to a conference in Cairo, Egypt. It's a little past 10.30 in the morning, Tuesday, November 23rd, 1943. We're with a group of Americans at U.S. Ambassador Alexander Kirk's beautiful Cairo Villa, relaxing for a brief moment before making their way to the nearby historic Mina House Hotel. And the beauty isn't just the villa and the three-story hotel, but the surroundings.

Only miles away, the great pyramids of Giza loom large in the background. Well, time to get going. The meeting starts at 11. Allied leaders are now walking into the hotel. They include the United States President Franklin Roosevelt and his entourage, as well as the UK's prime minister, Winston Churchill, and his. Between them are nearly all the combined chiefs of staff. The Soviet Union's premier, Joseph Stalin, is not here. He's looking forward to hosting Franklin and Winston in a matter of days at his embassy in Iran. Yet, there is nonetheless one other major ally here, or rather one whom FDR has positioned to be treated like a major ally.

Generalissimo Zheng Kai Sheck And let's note He's accompanied by his wife Songmeiling, better known as Adam Jong. That's important

and no, not because British field marshal Lord Allenbrook finds her looks distracting enough to think he hears young officers letting out a quote-unquote suppressed nay when she shifts

in her slit skirt but because she speaks impeccable English. It'll be every bit a part of these conversations as her non-English-speaking husband. With everyone situated, Franklin starts this plenary meeting of the Cairo Conference, codenamed the Sextent Conference, by welcoming China's leaders.

Songmei Ling translates for her husband, as Franklin announces, The effects of this meeting will, I hope, not only bear fruit today and in the immediate future, but for decades to come. From here, the handsome, square-jawed British Navy Admiral and Supreme Allied commander in Southeast Asia, Lord Louis Mountbatten, outlines a proposed plan to attack the Japanese in his sphere. This includes increasing supplies flown into China over the Himalayas, the ever-difficult air supply path known as the hump,

perhaps upwards of 10,000 tons per month, and, early next year, a land campaign in Burma to reopen supply routes on the ground. Winston Churchill sees promise. He speaks to the value of this maneuver, of 320,000 men to support the Allies in Asia and the eventual rise of a serious naval force in the Indian Ocean, declaring, These are important military operations of a much greater magnitude than ever previously contemplated for this theater. I have high hopes of these operations, and owing to the surrender of the Italian fleet, a formidable British fleet will be established in due course in the Indian Ocean.

Oh, in due course? No, no. Junkai Shek believes that isn't fast enough for naval power. Through his wife, he answers that, the success of the operations in Burma depends on the simultaneous coordination of naval action with the land operations. Ah, but Winston disagrees. Naval operations in the Bay of Bengal will not necessarily be coordinated with and linked to the land campaign. Our naval superiority in this area should ensure the security of our communications and a threat to those of the enemy.

The General Isimo pushes harder now, laying out his view that Burma is the linchpin to China's success or failure. Burma is the key to the whole campaign in Asia. After I am cleared out of Burma, the enemy's next stand would be in North China and finally in Manchuria. With the tension mounting, Franklin intercedes. The matter cannot be carried any further this morning. I hope that the journalistissimo will take this opportunity of meeting the chiefs of the American and British staffs and to discuss these important problems frankly with them. Jung Kai Shek takes Franklin's advice, meeting with the American president again that night for dinner.

We know more about Madam Jung's black silk chie-pow dress than the exact words she translated between the two male leaders. No joke, historical sources mention her dress. while offering no account of their dialogue. But between this dinner and the days following, the General Isimo comes away convinced that Franklin will assure more financial aid, China's role as one of the four great powers of the post-war world, a distancing, if not complete freedom from colonial powers, and, most immediately, that naval support he wants in the Bay of Bengal,

an idea codenamed Operation Buccaneer. Big alleged promises tied up with a bow of photos, handshakes, a Thanksgiving dinner, and the Cairo Declaration, essentially an elaboration of FDR and Winston's liberal democratic goals for the post-war world, as first laid out in their 1941 Atlantic Charter. And notably, this Cairo Declaration expressly states, Japan will be expelled from the territories it's taken, including those, quote, stolen from the Chinese. close quote. But whatever the General Isimo thought Franklin promised beyond the Cairo Declaration isn't happening.

At least, not as the Chinese nationalist understands it. Winston and Franklin's meeting with Joseph Stalin the following week in Tehran, Iran, Iran, is a story for another day. But the big three's focus on Europe kills Operation Buccaneer. Nor does FDR seem as sold on Jung. Only days after Cairo, he tells Vinegar Joe, if Jung goes completely bankrupt, supports somebody else. It seems the American president has come to see the Generalissimo as Lord Allenbrook does, as a cross between a pine mountain and a ferret.

But waning allied confidence in the Generalissimo and the cancellation of Operation Buccaneer doesn't mean Chinese interests on the Burma Road are of no concern. The Americans will hold this line. They'll just do it their way. Not long before the Cairo Conference, in September of this same year, 1943, Charlton Ogburn found himself at San Francisco's Camp Stoneman, preparatory to shipping out to the Pacific Theater to engage in jungle combat. Never mind that the call specified, this was for, quote,

a dangerous and hazardous mission, close quote. Charlton hates the cold so much that the promise of a jungle was all he needed. You can threaten his life. Just don't threaten him with snow. And just what type of men voluntarily answer a call like this? Well, nearly 3,000 answer. Jungle-trained men out of the Caribbean and the Army Ground Forces, a few hundred fresh recruits, and more than 600 hardened veterans of the Pacific.

But I can't describe them better than Charlton does on seeing his battalion for the first time. Quote him, I remember the word pirates crossed my mind. Here's the deal. Just last August, this same year, 1943, FDR and Winston Churchill, Hill sat down with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, at the Quebec Conference. A decision made there was to create a U.S. unit modeled on British General Ord Wingate's 77th Brigade, better known as the Chindits, in a nod to the Chintay, the mythical line that guards Burmese temples. In fact, this American unit was intended to fight under Ord Wingate himself.

But General Vinegar Joe Stillwell wouldn't have it. He insists that Uncle Sam's boys fight under Uncle Sam's command. Like many American commanders, going back to World War I's Blackjack Pershing, he understands that his own power is undermined if British commanders call the shots for his men. He pushed the issue until Allied Supreme Commander Lord Mountbatten gave in. Ordwyngate was none too happy about it. According to Charlton Ogburn's memoir, the British general answered, You can tell General Stilwell that he can take his Americans and... Well, that's where Charlton trails off, but I think we all get the gist. Thus, September saw the creation of a nearly 3,000-strong, volunteer, and American long-range penetration group.

The 5307th, code name Gallaghaned, and commanded by American Brigadier General Frank Merrill. But, you know, that name won't do. Just as their British inspiration is known as Windgate's Chindens, the newsmen following this new and daring unit wants something snappyer, and sexier, a name that conveys this is a motley crew of land pirates. And one day, while riding in a Jeep with General Frank Merrill and other reporters, James Shepley, of time and life, comes up with just such a name. Meryl's Marauders. James asks the general, what do you think of it? Frank answers in one word, or rather one grunt. Okay, so Frank Merrill isn't enthused. Nonetheless, the name

will stick, Merrill's Marauders, and what will stick even more is their well-earned reputation for bravery and duty. They'll fight in the jungles. They'll fight behind enemy lines. They'll take Miatchina Airfield, and they'll do it all at great sacrifice. Of the 2,750 who report to Burma, only 130 marauders will walk out on their own two feet. We'll hear more tales of the marauders' descendants, the Army Rangers, and future episodes. But for now, We leave them in Burma to follow the main American advance as 1943 gives way to 1944. Back to the Pacific's hopped over islands with America's stubborn corn-cob pipe chomping general, Douglas MacArthur, and his equally pugnacious friend, Admiral William Bull Halsey.

That's right. It's time to return to Operation Carp. Ah, yes. Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, and commander of the South Pacific area, or Comsopac, Admiral William Bull Halsey. What a pair. When we left them at the end of 1943 in the last episode, they were running a two-pronged amphibious campaign. Bull, working up the Solomon Islands, Doug tackling New Guinea to the west. Their target sits smack dab in the middle, New Britain's port city of Rabaul. This is Operation Cartwheel, and I trust to recall the approach. Rather than taking Rabal, they're jumping from one weaker island to the next, surrounding their target and cutting it off. As Doug puts it, this approach will make the Japanese base, quote, wither on the vine, close quote.

And finally, let's recall as well that Doug initially opposed this idea. Moreover, never mind that it's rear Admiral Theodore Wilkinson, who's most responsible for putting it into practice, Doug's taking the credit. He's even drawing a distinction. Hitting weaker islands is leapfrogging, while charging guns ablazing onto fortified islands in sequence is the lesser path of island hopping. I again leave it to you to put whatever stock you want into his definitions. Either way, Operation Cartwheel continues.

Leading the more eastern of the two prongs, Komsopak William Bolhawesi is progressing up the Solomon Islands. At no small cost, he takes Munda, then hops to Vela Lavella. By late October, Bulls poised to strike at Bougainville. Now, Bougainville is the largest of the Solomon Islands, and crucially, it's also the closest of this island chain's larger islands to the final target of Rabaal itself. A toe hold the Americans' knee, even with 40,000 Japanese holding the southern end. But that's the point of hopping.

Bull skirts them entirely, striking the western shore at Empress Augusta Bay, defended by a mere 270 men. Bull's boys take them out, build an airfield, and Rabal is now in range. Brilliant. But as these intrepid Marines land on Empress Augusta Bay's shores to exploit this weakness on November 1st, Japan's replacement for Yamamoto Isoroku as commander of the combined fleet, Admiral Koga Meneichi answers. He sends Vice Admiral Omori Centaro with a force of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers,

and six destroyers defend the Americans off. A former torpedo school instructor, Omori, is more of a textbook admiral than a practiced one. In fact, this is his first actual battle. Nonetheless, he's confident. At a pre-battle briefing, he tells his gathered commanders, I believe we shall win. They aren't so sure. One skipper whispers to another.

Let's be prepared for a swim and take along plenty of shark repellent. His colleague doesn't share this dark sense of humor and answers with grave seriousness. Japan will topple if Bougainville falls. Trusting his sailors' training in night tactics to offset the fact that Bull Halsey's forces know they're coming. O'mori strikes at 2nd, November 2nd, 1943. Between rain and fog, no one can see anything beyond three miles. Omori loves it. His sailors have trained hard for such conditions.

He thinks he has the advantage. But it's only a matter of minutes before he's disabused of this notion. At 2.45 a.m., an American salvo crashes into the light cruiser, Sendai. It seems the advantages the Japanese once had at night have been lost over the past year to American technological advancements. To quote Captain Hara Tamayichi, enemy radar had rested from the Japanese Navy its former supremacy and night action. Within an hour, it becomes clear that dark humor and shark repellent were the right approach.

But Mori has lost the dark morning battle with Empress Augusta Bay so thoroughly, he'll never command again. Understanding the devastating threat, this American toehold on Boganville poses, Japan's commander of the combined fleet, Admiral Koga Maniichi, isn't about to accept this defeat. And he won't trust a bookworm this time. Rather, the Japanese commander sends the opposite. A man who sunk an American heavy cruiser felt the pain of defeat at Midway and temporarily silenced Guadalcanals Henderson Airfield.

In short, an officer who's seen almost every noteworthy battle of this war, Vice Admiral Kurita Takeo. You want to remember that name. With a force of eight cruisers, seven heavy and one light, Admiral Kurita sails off to reinforce Rabal. A patrolling B-24 notices Kurita's fleet, where it comes back to Bol, and he has a choice. Sit on Bougainville and wait for his likely demise, or preemptively hit the Japanese fleet at Rabal, where they'll have shore batteries backing them.

Damned either way, no wonder Bull will later call this, the most desperate emergency that confronted me in my entire term is Comso Pack. Bull decides to act. On November 5th, he entrusts Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman to take two carriers, USS Saratoga and USS Princeton, and 97 aircraft. Basically, every bird bull's got to do as much damage as possible to Admiral Corita's newly arrived warships. Frederick's two carriers don't sink a single Japanese ship, but they do significant damage to four heavy cruisers and two light cruisers while only losing 10 aircraft in the press. process. It's enough to keep the Japanese fleet from coming at them. Bulls gambled big, and he beat the house. His position on Boganville is secure, even as the Japanese hold most of the

island. But again, the Rising Sun Empire can have the rest of the aisle. All Bull needs is this toehold on its western coast, and as 1943 gives way to 1944, the Japanese base at Rabal is already starting to use Doug's phrase to wither. And speaking of Doug, he's ready to make a gamble of his own. On February 24th, he receives intel that the Las Negros Island is sparsely defended. General Ennis Whitehead believes it has about 300 men and is ripe for the plucking. Fantastic, if true, Los Negros might be a little more than an islet, but holding and building an airfield on this little speck among the Admiralty Islands,

about 350 miles northwest of Rabaal, could really wither up the Japanese forces all the more. Doug thinks the number is too low. He agrees with General Charles Willoughby's estimate of some 4,000 or so Japanese across the Admiralty Islands. Moving without building up is truly risky, but he won't wait and risk missing this possible lull in Japanese defenses. No, Doug prefers to hop, sorry, leap at the opportunity, moving in quickly with a mere thousand men from the first cavalry. Nor is he gambling with others' lives alone. Doug's going in himself. It's about four in the afternoon.

Leap Day, February 29, 1944. Dressed in a tan trench coat and his officer's cap to protect against the downpour just starting to let up. General Douglas MacArthur strides through the surf and onto the southern shores. of Los Negros Islands, Momote Beach. As he walks, his accompanying aides keep a nervous and watchful eye. While this morning's Brewer Task Force braved Japanese machine guns and took control with much of this island, including Momitay Airfield, occasional gunfire still rings out in the distance.

Doug's first order of business is ceremonial. He pins a distinguished service cross on the chest of Lieutenant Marvin Hinshaw for leading the first wave of Americans ashore. Marvin also took out one of the five Japanese killed in this morning's fight, a fight that also caused 10 American casualties, four dead and six wounded. So far, these numbers are incredibly low, and Doug is thrilled. But the continuous crack of gunfire in the jungle can't be ignored. He turns to Marvin's commanding officer, Brigadier General William Chase, and urges him,

You have all performed marvelously. Hold what you have taken, no matter against what odds. You have your teeth in him now. Don't let go. Doug continues to tour the beach. And with every soggy step in the sandy mud, his officers grow progressively and more nervous. But the corn co-cob pipe-loving general pays no heed to the danger.

He just wants more details. One cavalry officer touches Doug's sleeve. He then points to the nearby jungle as he interjects. Excuse me, sir, but we killed a Jap sniper in there just a few minutes ago. Doug responds. Fine. That's the best thing to do with them. A little farther on, the group comes across the bodies of two Japanese soldiers, young, dark-haired and shirtless, fleeting lifeless across the sand. They stop. Someone claims that one was killed just 20 minutes ago. Doug stares for a long moment.

Finally, he mutters, that's the way I like to see them. Doug tours for two hours. In the process, he raises everyone's blood-privile. pressure by examining the seized but hardly secure airfield. He insists that everyone else wear a helmet, but not him. And this is both noble and self-serving at once. He'll risk his life to meet his responsibilities, and he's taking a little more risk than needed to shed a nickname he's long hated. Dugout, Doug. He's not one for the dugout. He's one for the field.

And this field is well in hand, especially as more troops land that same day. Doug and his entourage returned to their light cruiser, USS Phoenix, knowing the gamble is paid off. Los Negros is theirs. Not that the island's remaining Japanese forces will accept that without a fight. A week later, on March 4th, the Japanese charge out in a bonsai attack. But the Americans hold, even at great sacrifice. As Tennessee native, Sergeant Troy McGill's squad is cut down by 200 charging soldiers, he orders his last man still standing to fall back.

Troy then stands his ground alone, firing until his gun fails him before charging out of his foxhole to fight on with the butt of his rifle. More than a hundred Japanese dead are later found around his corpse, and he's posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. On April 6th, the lieutenant whom Doug honored with the Distinguished Service Cross, Marvin Henshaw is killed in mop-up actions. Or so we assume, he's never found. But it's not in vain. As Troy, Marvin, and Thoult, Thousands of other young Americans make the ultimate sacrifice. Rabal is surrounded.

Its 100,000 Japanese troops go from fighting shape to starving, tunneling into the ground to hide from the bombs. They'll survive the war, but they'll do so as, to quote one witness, living corpses. Wither on the vine indeed. And so, the hopping and leaping have done it. Rabal is neutralized. By the end of April, Operation Cartwheel

is a success. And with that success, Doug's gaze is fixed on the land and the men he was forced to abandon two years ago and a promise he means to fulfill. But the fulfillment of that promise is a story for another time. Right now, our gaze must turn away from Doug's southwest Pacific and back to Chester Nimitz's Central Pacific. It's time to prepare for Operation Forger or D-Day in the Pacific, the invasion of Saipan and the Marianas. Japan's commander of the combined fleet, Koga Meneichi, is in a tough spot as we enter spring, 1944. Here's the 30,000-foot view. He inherited a back-footed position when American Fly Boys killed his friend and predecessor, Yamamoto Isoroku, in April, 1943, as we saw in episode 208.

Since then, he's watched the Allies hop across the Gilberts and marshals and cartwheel through New Guinea and the Solmonds to choke off Rabal. That's rough. Koga draws a line, if the Americans come for the Mariana Islands, which lies halfway between New Guinea and Japan, and would put the United States B-29 super fortresses close enough to strike the land of the rising sun itself, he'll confront his foe in what he terms a, quote-unquote, decisive battle. But tragedy strikes the combined fleet commander before it comes to that. Flying across the Philippines on March 31st, 1944,

His plane goes down in a typhoon. Nonetheless, Coga's successor, Admiral Toyota Soemu, holds his line. Known as Operation Ago, Japan is determined to engage the U.S. in the sea battle to end all sea battles. To quote Toyota, we must achieve our objectives by crushing with one stroke the nucleus of the great enemy concentration of forces in one decisive battle. The Americans are also thinking decisively,

with Operation Forager. This is their plan to hop to the Mariana Islands, starting with the most northern of the archipelago's larger islands, Saipan. This bold move would put the Japanese homeland within Super Fortress Range. Worse, that would put striking the Emperor himself in range. This, the land of the rising sun, cannot abide. So, the decisive battle is on.

But Japan faces too serious problems. as this Mariana throwdown materializes. First is that the Americans just placed the battle far from where the Japanese hoped this epic clash would happen. More to the point, this means fighting far from the conquered oil fields of the Dutch East Indies, after already suffering the loss of 21 oil tankers taken out by the Allies in recent months. Thus, even as Toyota sends the commander of the first mobile fleet, Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo, out to fight with an impressive armada. The experienced admiral's forces boast nine aircraft carriers with a total of nearly 500 aircraft. He has to be mindful about economizing his volatile fuel.

Japan's second problem is that this fleet's pilots are as wet if not wetter behind the ears than the whole of their carriers. See, the United States sends its veterans home to train new pilots. Conversely, Japan's seasoned pilots stay in the fight until, the fight takes them out. Thus, the Japanese boys flying these birds. Some are teenagers, are brave but untrained. They're about to go cockpit to cockpit with more capable Americans who outnumber them two to one. Opposite Ozawa is commander of the fifth fleet, Admiral Raymond Spruance, and under him, one of the nation's first Navy pilots turned aggressive vice adm, Mark Mitcher, whose Task Force 58 boasts a staggering 15 carriers with some 900 aircraft.

On the other hand, OZawa expects help from the land in the form of some 450 Japanese aircraft stationed between Saipan and Guam. Experience remains an issue, but, at least on paper, that should bring parity back to the fight. But of course, the battle doesn't begin with the carriers. It begins with the Marines. On June 15th, 1944, nine days after the Allies' D-Day invasion of France's Normandy Beach, the Pacific's D-Day arrives. The second and fourth marine divisions lead the landing on Saipan.

It's reminiscent of the fighting we saw at the Battle of Tarawa in episode 209, but on a larger scale. As the devil-dogs advance, they don't know that the anticipating Japanese have flags out on the reef, giving them a perfect knowledge of when to fire up their howitzers, their 75s, and batteries. Young American boys are blasted to bits in the water and on the beach. It's so bad, the total casualty count will never be clear. They are the blood sacrifice for their surviving brothers in arms to establish a hold on the island. On June 18th, Emperor Hirohito lays out the stakes for Prime Minister Tojo Hideki. If we ever lose Saipan, repeated air attacks on Tokyo will follow. No matter what it takes, we have to hold.

hold there. And with those stakes at play, Admiral Ozawa's fleet arrives. The opposing fleets are in place. The battle is on. And while the Japanese don't quite realize it, here's the truth. They don't have a prayer. It's just before 10.20 in the morning, Monday, June 19, 1944. A 25-year-old dark-haired Hoosier, Alex Veraschu, is with 11 other pilots on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, or the blue ghost, as she's also known, for her dark paint and her habit of surviving what should have killed her. They're located west of the Mariana Island of Guam. Alex leads this group, and they're on standby, waiting to join a fight that started without them 20 minutes ago. And yes, Alex is very eager, a double ace with 12 victories under his belt.

He has every intention of adding to his count today. Finally, word comes down, and Alex and his flyboy boys don't waste a minute. They dashed their neatly lined-up single-engine Hellcat fighters and take off. Alex climbs and climbs through the air only to find he has a more urgent foe than the Japanese, his own plane's mechanics. His engine spits oil that obstructs his view as it flies back in a spray on the cockpit's windshield. Okay, radioing back that his Hellcat cannot handle more than 20,000 feet of altitude in its current condition, the fighter director officer instructs Alex to have his group hang over and protect the task force at that very elevation. It's now just after 11 in the morning.

Ordered to a vector of 265 degrees, Alex spots what he calls a large rambling mass of at least 50 enemy planes headed right toward them. But that's just his estimate. The real number is 69. Alex shouts into his radio, Tally-ho! And with that, he's officially in the fray. adrenaline pumping, Alex thinks to himself.

This could develop into a once-in-a-lifetime fighter pilot's dream. Flying above the Yokosuka D4Y, two-man dive bombers, or Judi's, as the Americans call them, he prepares to move in. Alex comes in behind the Judy. He evades the tailgunner's fire as he answers in kind. And it's a hit, the Judy sputters and spins into the sea below. Four more follow. Two, then two more diving for his blue ghost.

Same maneuver, same results. With his fellow Hellcats ripping through the sky around him, Alex singles out one more Judy. He buzzes ahead of the bomber, turns back to line up against his foe and fires. As Alex will later recall, number six blew up with a tremendous explosion right in front of my face. I must have hit his bomb. I had seen planes blow up before, but never like this. Alex has to turn sharply just to avoid the shrapnel from his own kill. As he does, he radios out.

Splash number six. That's right. Six kills, all within eight minutes. And as Alex peers across the blue skies, all he sees are those white streaks of aviator-made condensation, or contrails, and his fellow Americans. The Japanese appear only among the Pacific's blue below. Wrecked and gone. Returning to the Lexington, Alex emerges from his hellcap, all grins. A photo captures an image of the Hoosier as he holds up fingers to the crewman, indicating his total battle kill count of six.

That's 18 total kills across his military career to date, with one more confirmed kill to come. By the war's end, Alex will return to Indiana as the Navy's fourth-ranking ace. To say things are going Uncle Sam's way in this decisive battle, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, is an understatement. Of the 373 aircraft, Admiral Ozawa launches against the U.S., only 130 of his rookie piloted planes come back. Nor do the already under siege Japanese forces on the Mariana's provide the additional 450 aircraft he had hoped for. Only 50 or so get off the ground, and the Americans make short work of them, while only losing 25 Hellcats. In 11-1 kill ratio. Back on the Lexington, pilot Ziggy Neff excitedly exclaims,

Hell, this is like an old-time turkey shoot. The name sticks. What we've just witnessed will be known as the great Mariana's turkey shoot. The next day, June 20, 1944, Hellcats dive on more unprepared Japanese duties, leading Admiral Ozawa to retreat toward the safety of the island of Okinawa. Admiral Raymond Spruance is pleased. But Task Force Commander Mark Mitchell isn't about to let Ozawa escape.

Risky to pursue the Japanese fleet some 300 miles out and on fumes. True. But the aggressive Admiral knows his planes and his pilots and recognizes the enormous savings in American life. It could mean if they sink those carriers. And so he sends his bombers out into the night to get the carriers. to quote the ready room chalkboards. Well, they don't sink them all.

Nonetheless, they do some serious damage. The American flyboys return to their carriers on fumes, and according to legend, the fleet's searchlights help them find their way. Yet another risky move, if true, as those same guiding lights all but dare Japanese subs to attack. Some planes crash on the flat tops, leaving heroic crews to extract pilots and push the wreckage off in time for another landing.

Still others crash in the Pacific's cold waters. Rescue operations fished some 160 pilots and crew from the water. That's most of them, but not all of them. By the end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Americans have lost 123 aircraft in either 49 or 109 men. Sources conflict. Meanwhile, they've destroyed 400 Japanese planes, sunk three carriers, and killed upwards of 3,000 Japanese pilots and sailors.

Japan got its decisive battle. In fact, there's really only one question afterward. Had more defensively minded Admiral Raymond Spruence really let Admiral Mark Mitchell go full throttle and sunk even more carriers, might the war come to an end sooner? But that's a question and a story for another day. For now, let's see our way through Operation Forger on Saipan.

Japanese general Saito Yoshitsugu can see the writing on the wall. On July 6th, with two-thirds of the island in American hands, and all of his armed forces pushed to the northern tip of Saipan, he radios Tokyo to say that the battle is lost. Then he sends one final order to his troops. Whether we attack or whether we stay where we are, there is only death. However, in death there is life.

We must utilize this opportunity to exalt a true Japanese manhood. I will advance with those who remain to deliver still, another blow to the American devils. I will leave my bones on Saipan as a bulwark of the Pacific. But he doesn't lead the advance. Too ill and weak, Saito chooses to commit Sapuku. He cuts into himself with his sword. His adjutant then finishes it by shooting him in the head. Meanwhile, the departed general's men prepare. Private Kawaguchi-Taro bows northward to Emperor Hirohito, then writes a last diary entry. I am only 26 years old.

It is deeply regrettable that I have nothing to report at this time when my life is fluttering away like a flower petal to become a part of the soil. I, with my sacrificed body, will stand on this island until the friendly forces come to reclaim the soil of the emperor.

Huh, another bonsai attack? Or something else? The honor-fueled Japanese move out in the coming hours. It's early in the still dark morning, July 8, 1944, and 25-year-old Benjamin Hazard is lying in his foxhole near a creek at Tanapag Harbor on the northwest side of Saipan. Just behind a creek with one bridge crossing, he's waiting for the onslaught. See, between Nisei friends at his high school in Los Angeles, night school, and UCLA, then speaks excellent Japanese. Now he's putting those language skills to use for military intelligence.

and in recent days, he and Nise interpreters have learned from a prisoner that the Japanese are planning a Goku Sai. What's that? Ben translates it as breaking or smashing the jewel. He goes on to say that, quote, this is not the same as a bonsai attack. This is an attack until annihilation. The battle cry is seven lives to repay the nation. In other words, a suicide attack in which even.

Man should kill seven of the enemy before his own death. Warnings have been sent, but help isn't coming. The higher-ups, they don't get it. They haven't heard the word Gokusai before, and neither Ben nor his Nisei colleagues can get the significance of it through to them just yet. Nonetheless, the early dark morning is quiet, apart from singing somewhere out in the distance. Ben waits.

The singing gets closer. and closer, and it isn't singing now. It's become shouts. Battle cries. The attack is here. A lingering marine crew with a heavy machine gun lays down fire, as Ben and other soldiers from the Army's 27th Division put that cover to full advantage. Some add rifle fire, while others piled the falling bodies of the swarming Japanese on the bridge to choke off the access point to their position. Yet, the Japanese keep coming. Their first line, bears bayoneted rifles. Behind them are men with swords. Then come the sick and the wounded, and even civilians carrying makeshift spears and knives. Some are fueled by hate, some by patriotic

fervor, many by sake. But whatever drives them, they won't stop until they're dead. Finn pulls out his rifle and fires into the mass of men. As he puts it, we mowed them down. Well, the machine gun did most of it. As the battle comes to its end, Ben begins gathering intel by checking the identities of his attackers. He finds an officer wearing a katana. Ben takes the blade, like the traumatic memories of this early morning. He will hold onto this sword for the rest of his life. Walking the battlefield in days following, Ben approaches the mass of dead bodies.

Some are freshly dead, yes. Others, he realizes, relying here long before the attack. These bodies are green and ash. And just how many of these bodies fell before this latest attack is unknown. But in total, 4,311 Japanese dead littered the ground along this creek held by the Americans. Yet the horrors aren't over. Between a belief that the Americans would torture and kill anyone found left on the island and orders from local Japanese leaders, July 8th sees more death. Sinide capsules are distributed. Soldiers are asked to behead their victims. Children stand

around grenades. Mothers kill their children so that the soldiers won't have to. And at the infamous Marpe Point, or bonsai cliff, as this northern cliff on Saipan will be known after today, civilians plunge onto the rocks and into churning surf below. While these deaths are often reported to be as high as or even in excess of 20,000, Some jumping willingly, others not. Historian Alexander Astros' work in the 21st century will demonstrate the figure was far less. Closer to 2,000 suicides and murders on Saipan and Tinian combined. Thus, the deaths at Marpe Point were likely in the hundreds, not thousands.

The Battle of Saipan ends the next day, July 9, 1944, when Marines seize Marpy Point. This is the costliest battle the U.S. has seen. in the Pacific to date. 2,949 Americans are dead. Another 10,464 are wounded. Yet that's nothing compared to the Japanese. With essentially every soldier on the island lost, they've suffered at least 27,000 dead.

More than that, Emperor Hirohito is right. The American hold on the Marianas opens Tokyo to Super Fortress bombings. Not long-shot heroic do little raids, but constant successive bombings. just like the European theater. No wonder the Battle of Saipan is often called the D-Day of the Pacific. And no wonder, the Japanese will only fight harder as the Americans continue to close in. Guam is yet to fall.

Douglas MacArthur is yet to return to the Philippines. There is still much to do and many who will die before the fight is through in the Pacific, even if Tokyo is now in sight. But we must now leave these blood-soaked beaches for a time to visit still another. Not in this theater, but in Europe. Next time, we plan the landing on France's northern shore. It's time for Operation Overlord. History That Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson.

Episode Research and Written by Greg Jackson and Wilkie. Executive editor, Riley Newbell. Production by Airship. Audio editing by Muhammad Chazade. Sound design by Molly Bach. Theme music. by Greg Jackson. Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsay Graham

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