Their backs against the sea : the battle of Saipan and the largest banzai attack of World War II / Bill Sloan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sloan, Bill, 1935- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Marine Corps--History--World War, 1939-1945.

United States.

United States. Marine Corps.

Saipan, Battle of, Northern Mariana Islands, 1944.

History.

Northern Mariana Islands.

Local Subjects:

United States. Marine Corps--History--World War, 1939-1945.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

278 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Da Capo Press edition.

Other Title:

Battle of Saipan and the largest banzai attack of World War II

Place of Publication:

[New York] : Da Capo Press, 2017.

Summary:

In the midst of the largest banzai attack of the war, US Army Lt. Col. William O'Brien, grievously wounded and out of ammunition, grabbed a sabre from a fallen Japanese soldier and flailed away at a small army of assailants, screaming to his men, "Don't give them a damn inch!" When his body was recovered the next day, thirty dead enemies were piled around him. The Battle of Saipan lasted twenty-five hellish days in the summer of 1944, and the stakes couldn't have been higher. If Japan lost possession of the island, all hope for victory would be lost. For the Americans, its capture would result in secure air bases for the new B-29s that would put them within striking distance of the Japanese homeland. The outcome of the war in the Pacific lay in the balance. In this gritty, vivid narrative, award-winning author Bill Sloan fuses fresh interviews, oral and unit histories, and unpublished accounts to describe one of the war's bloodiest and most overlooked battles of the Pacific theater. Combining grunt's-view grit with big picture panorama (and one of the ugliest inter-service controversies of the war), Their Backs against the Sea is the definitive dramatic story of this epic battle--and an inspiring chronicle of some of the greatest acts of valor in American military history.

Contents:

Islands of mystery

The infernal beach

The eternal beach

Enter the 27th Division

The Marianas turkey shoot

Smith vs. Smith

"Something's coming!"

To die with honor

The aftermath

Tinian's rolling plains

Coming home

Tinian and the B-29

Dismay in Japan.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-266) and index.

ISBN:

9780306824715

030682471X

OCLC:

960294725