World Battlefronts: BEACHHEAD IN THE MARIANAS

Before the Marines and Army infantrymen had well secured their toehold on Saipan, in the Marianas, TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod, veteran of Attu and Tarawa, was ashore with them. He radioed:

At dawn on D-day Saipan looked like a low-lying prehistoric monster whose high, rising spine was Mt. Tapotchau. Already the sugar-mill town of Charan Kanoa was afire or smoking at several points and there was some smoke rising from Garapan from the bombing and shelling of the previous two days. At 5:45 the big guns began—gunfire from 5-inch destroyer to 16-inch battleship shells....

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