Marines and soldiers storm Guam's beaches, opening a three-week fight to retake it
Guam had been American soil since 1898, and Japan had held it since December 8, 1941, the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. On July 21, 1944, Marines and Army troops landed on both sides of the Orote Peninsula under cover of naval gunfire, wading ashore against dug-in defenders and a reef that kept supply ships hundreds of yards offshore. Rain, jungle, and a network of Japanese bunkers and caves slowed the advance for weeks. Organized resistance ended August 10, clearing the way for airfields that put B-29 bombers within range of Japan itself.
Guam was one of several American territories Japan occupied during the war, including Wake Island and the Philippines, and its recapture was framed as reclaiming American land, not conquering foreign territory. Brigadier General Lemuel Shepherd said as much on the ground, framing the victory as vengeance for the garrison overcome by a numerically superior enemy three days after Pearl Harbor. The airfields built afterward, on a patch of reclaimed U.S. territory, gave American B-29s their reach into Japan's home islands and helped shorten the war.
QWhy did the Guam invasion get delayed by five weeks?
Planners had set June 18, 1944, just three days after the Saipan landing, as the invasion date. Saipan turned out to hold a much larger Japanese garrison than expected, tying down troops and ships that Guam's invasion force needed. At the same time, the Battle of the Philippine Sea pulled away the carriers and naval support assigned to the landing. The invasion slipped to July 21, giving American battleships and cruisers extra weeks to shell the island's defenses before Marines and soldiers ever reached the beach.
QWhat made moving supplies onto Guam's beaches so difficult?
A reef ringed the landing beaches, and it kept landing ships stranded several hundred yards from shore, far too distant for normal unloading. Amphibious vehicles capable of crossing that gap were in short supply, so every crate of ammunition and every gallon of water had to move through a bottleneck under fire. The northern and southern beachheads stayed pinned down as a result, and what should have been a quick push inland turned into a slow, exposed crawl across open reef flats.
QWhat did the Japanese commander say in his final radio message before Guam fell?
Lieutenant General Hideyoshi Obata sent Imperial General Headquarters a message on August 10 stating that holding Guam had become hopeless and that he would engage the enemy in a last battle at Mount Mataguac the following day. He had written earlier that he felt deeply sympathetic toward the officers and men who had already fallen and their families. Obata did not survive the stand at Mount Mataguac he described in that final dispatch.
