Key Facts
- Duration
- June–November 1944
- Carriers in Task Force 58
- 15
- Amphibious troops committed
- 127,000+
- Aircraft in Task Force 58
- 900+
- Attack transports
- 56
- Landing craft
- 84
Strategic Narrative Overview
U.S. forces landed on Saipan in June 1944, prompting the Imperial Japanese Navy to sortie its Combined Fleet. The resulting Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19–20 June ended in a decisive Japanese defeat, with catastrophic losses to carrier aviation. Guam and Tinian fell by August after heavy fighting. In September, Marines and Army troops landed on Peleliu and Angaur in Palau, securing both islands by November after brutal combat.
01 / The Origins
By 1944, U.S. strategy in the Pacific required neutralizing Japanese strongholds in the central Pacific to open a path toward the Philippines and Japan itself. The Mariana and Palau Islands held Japanese air and naval bases that threatened Allied advances. Capturing them would also provide airfields within B-29 bombing range of the Japanese home islands, making the campaign a strategic necessity under overall command of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.
03 / The Outcome
With the Marianas secured, the U.S. constructed airfields on Saipan and Tinian from which B-29s struck Japan until the war's end, including the atomic bombings. The Palau operation secured the Philippines' flank, enabling the October 1944 landings there. The main Japanese garrison on Koror was bypassed and only surrendered in August 1945 upon Japan's general capitulation.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Chester W. Nimitz, Raymond A. Spruance, Marc Mitscher, Richmond K. Turner.
Side B
1 belligerent
Kinetic Engagement Axis
Scroll horizontally to view full axis. Events plotted relatively.