Guam 1941 & 1944: Loss and Reconquest (Campaign, 139)

Another very enlightening book!

All in all, this book provides a good overview of the two battles on the island of Guam. The narrative is well organized and easy to follow. The first half of the book discusses the island's history, the military leaders, and the opposing forces. It also covers the 1941 invasion of the island by the Japanese. The coverage of this 1941 invasion, however, is somewhat brief. The second half of the book is focused on the 1944 battle where the US Marines reclaimed the island. The author, Gordon Rottman, included numerous black and white photos of the battle. These photos are appropriately placed to match up with the corresponding text. The author also included a couple of beach sketches from TF 53's Operations plan. The inclusion of these contemporary sketches adds a nice touch to the book. As with all Campaign series books, this one contains three 3D birds eye view maps and several 2D tactical maps. The 3D maps do a good job of describing certain battles. The 2D maps, however, are much more helpful. These maps are uncluttered and the landing beaches are clearly identified. The reader will find these maps useful in following the progress of the battle. In addition, the author included three full color battle scenes that are fairly informative. Another useful part is the list of abbreviations in the beginning of the book. This list will help any reader who is unfamiliar with the unique designations of some Imperial Japanese Army units, such as the IMB (Independent Mixed Brigade) or IIB (Independent Infantry Battalion). Bottom line: This book provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the 1944 Battle to retake Guam. It also gives limited information on the 1941 invasion. It is a pretty easy read that moves along quickly. The reader will definitely come away with a solid understanding of how this battle evolved.

Excellent

The Japanese capture of Guam in December 1941 and the US reconquest of the island are covered by Gordon L Rottman in Osprey's Campaign #139. Although operations on this island in the Second World War normally do not rate much attention, Rottman notes that this was an expensive invasion by 1944 standards. The standard section on opposing forces, plans and commanders are good, if dry. While Rottman notes that operationally the idea of landing two US Marine forces separated by 7 miles was unprecedented, he fails to note that the three major US units landing (3rd Marine Division, 1st Provisional Brigade and US Army 77th Infantry Division) had only a 2.6-1 numerical advantage over the defenders - a bit slim for an opposed landing. The author provides five 2-D maps (strategic situation; Marianas islands; Japanese defenses on Guam; the fight for the beachheads; daily progress, 21 July - 10 August 1944), three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps (3rd Marine Division securing the beachhead; the capture of Orote Peninsula and the Japanese counterattack on 25-26 July 1944) and three color battle scenes Banzai attack on the 3rd Marine Division hospital; trail-breaking in northern Guam; feeding the "Long Toms"). The maps were better in this volume than his previous volume on Saipan, particularly in filling in the strategic picture. On the other hand, the author notes that for coastal defense the Japanese had nineteen 8-inch guns and eight 6-inch guns, but doesn't identify where they were located in proximity to the invasion beaches. The author's order of battle is excellent - always as Rottman specialty - as is the bibliography. Rottman describes the hopelessness of the small US Navy-US Marine Corps garrison in December 1941, which was quickly overwhelmed by the Japanese. The quick loss of the island at the outset of the war - and the fact that US military planners assumed that the island was indefensible - raises two questions not addressed by Rottman. First, why did the US garrison not have a better self-destruct plan to quickly dispose of aviation fuel stocks and vehicles to prevent falling into Japanese hands? Second, given the facts that the Guamian population was friendly and the island was fairly large and littered with caves, why did the US military not consider guerrilla warfare on Guam? Rottman notes the successful evasion for more than two years by US Navy signalman George Tweed, but what if the US Marine company on Guam had prepared arms caches and hide locations in the remote areas of the island before the Japanese invasion. Apparently, Guam is a pretty good place to hide, since Rottman notes that about "7,500 Japanese were still at-large on the island when it was declared secure" and the last holdout didn't surrender until 1973. Rather than meekly surrendering and heading off to Manchurian prisons, a small force of Marines and Guamians probably could have been more useful as a stay-behind force to assist the eventual reconquest of the island. The strength of this volume -as all of Rottman's volumes - lies in the detail on daily military operations, but the weaknesses are lack of humanity and failure to analyze available data. Rottman fails to provide any first-person accounts or to even mention any of the four US Marine Medal of Honor recipients in the campaign Skaggs, Mason, Wilson and Witek). Even George Tweed's miraculous survival and escape rates only two sentences. Rottman suggest that US Marine battalions were gutted by heavy losses on Guam, at one point claiming that "most Marine battalions lost over 300 killed each, some almost 500." Rottman's casualty table shows 1,457 US Marine fatalities on Guam, which divided by the 15 Marine infantry battalions in the operation, yields an average of only 97 deaths per battalion (and this ignores artillery, engineers and support troop losses). If we consider total casualties, then it is possible that the rifle battalions suffered 300-400 casualties each, but we need to be careful with these numbers. Stastically, someone like John Kerry counted as three "wounded" in Vietnam, even though he was never hospitalized; on Guam, I'm sure some Marines were wounded more than once. The other issue where Rottman shows failure to analyze is to ask why the US Army, which had 35% of the combat troops on Guam, suffered only 10% of the deaths? Obviously, the Marine casualties appear pretty excessive in comparison to the US Army methods. I also find Rottman's description of the Japanese counterattack on 25-26 July 1944 troubling. Coming less than three weeks after the destructive Japanese Banzai attack on Saipan, one might think that the 3rd Marine Division would have been expecting something similar on Guam. Instead, the 3rd Marine Division had all nine of its infantry battalions on line with no appreciable reserve and no defenses in depth; all of which greatly facilitated the Japanese counterattack. As on Saipan, the Japanese penetrated the thinly spread Marine perimeter and drove deep into the rear areas, inflicting serious casualties. While it is true that the Japanese attacks in both cases cost them the bulk of their assault force, it seems that a certain amount of luck saved the Marines from total disaster. I suspect that the Marine commanders were under pressure to expand the beachhead as rapidly as possible and this meant taking risks, such as no reserve. However, this was fairly foolish and callous toward the lives of their own men. Had the Marines had a smaller perimeter with a reserve, the Japanese would have been just as destroyed but with lighter US losses. My suspicion is that Rottman accepts the 1944-US Marine style of operations as the "right way" and insinuates that the more careful US Army tactics were "wimpy."

"Guam 1941 & 1944" is another solid Osprey Campaign Series entry. This one describes the Japanese invasion of Guam, a U.S. Pacific possession in 1941, and its recovery by U.S. Marines and soldiers in 1944, following a fairly savage operation. Author Gordon L. Rottman and illustrator Howard Gerrard do the honors for Osprey. The book follows the standard Osprey format, with an introduction, a chronology, and descriptions of the opposing forces, their commanders, and their plans. The Japanese capture of the island in 1941 is quickly summarized; the U.S. forces holding the island were badly outnumbered and had no hope of reinforcement. The U.S. counter-invasion in 1944 takes up the bulk of the narrative. Rottman provides a detailed setup of the operations, the opposing forces, and a walk-through of the tough fight to reclaim the island. The U.S. committed two-plus divisions to the operation, which proved barely sufficient to fight off a desperate Japanese counterattack and to clean out numerous pockets of resistance. The account includes lots of good maps, diagrams, period photographs, and illustrations. This is a competent account of the reconquest, although it lacks a certain amount of human interest in the telling. Recommended as a good introduction to a tough World War II campaign.