Customer Reviews

BREACHING THE MARIANAS: THE BATTLE FOR SAIPAN (Marines in World War II Commemorative Series)

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One thing I do not admire about the Marine Corps is that it allows its admirers to distort history, to exaggerate the role of Marine Corps units in certain actions and campaigns and to give credit to Marine Corps units for deeds they never accomplished, often at the expense of Army units. Chapin does this in this particular book.

Saipan was the site of the largest, fiercest, most intense Banzai attack the Japanese ever launched against American forces in WWII. It was directed against Army units, and Army units contained it, defeated it, and drove it back. This is the account of the attack given in "Saipan:" The Beginning of the End", an official Marine Corps history cited by Chapin. Chapin says that Marine Corps units defeated the attack, a commonly repeated but nevertheless untrue story.

I am familiar with a number of the sources Chapin cites, not only "Saipan: The Beginning of the End" but also "The Campaign in the Mariannas", part of the US Army in World War II series, and Edmund Lover's "History of the Twenty Seventh Infantry Division in World War II". Chapin cites material in these sources which is "flattering" to the Marine Corps or disparaging to the Army. There is material in those sources which indicate that the 27th Infantry Division did fight bravely and well on Saipan and that Holland M. Smith, the Marine General who commanded on Saipan, made many fundamental errors on Saipan which affected how the 27th Infantry Division performed. Chapin ignores all this material.

This is not history, and I would have given it a minus 5 star rating if I could.