Chapter 3: Return to the Islands
At war’s end, Marine units not destined for an occupation assignment or deactivation went ashore to accept the surrender of Japanese forces on islands throughout the Pacific. After supervising the demilitarization and repatriation of the former enemy, the Marine units involved in these activities either were returned to the control of parent organizations, redesignated to reflect new duties as barracks or guard detachments, or deactivated.
Primarily, the story of the Marine Corps in the Pacific following the end of the war concerns Marine surrender and occupation duty, the activation of postwar garrison forces, and the many changes that the FMF underwent before the Marine Corps attained a peacetime stance.
Surrender and Occupation Duty1
Long before Japan had indicated a willingness to sue for peace, staffs in Washington and at Pearl Harbor were specially constituted to work on plans for implementing the surrender of isolated Japanese garrisons on the many islands and occupied areas in the Pacific. The question facing these staff planners was whether the Japanese island and area commanders would follow the lead of their government and surrender or whether they would put up fanatic resistance that could continue long after V-J Day. On 14 August, the Emperor had issued an Imperial Rescript calling upon his commanders to surrender and cooperate with the victors. After they had received their Emperor’s orders and were convinced of their authenticity, the outlying garrison commanders were more than willing to comply with them.
To provide for an orderly and systematic program of accepting the surrender of Japanese island garrisons and later occupying the islands, CinCPOA organized two task forces from the Marianas and Marshalls–Gilberts Area commands. These were: TF 94 (Commander, Marianas), established to operate the bases of that area and to occupy the East, Central, and Western Carolines (notably Truk, Yap, the Palaus, and the Bonins), and to evacuate enemy nationals from the Marianas; and TF 96 (Commander, Marshalls–Gilberts), organized for the same purposes
as TF 94, but scheduled to operate in the Marshalls–Gilberts Area.2
Prior to V-J Day, American forces in the Marshalls and Gilberts had gained control of Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Majuro, and Tarawa Atolls. After Japan surrendered Task Force 96 units had to set up occupation forces on such bypassed atolls and islands as Mille, Jaluit, and Wake, following the capitulation of the former enemy garrisons located there. In the Carolines, Ulithi, Peleliu, and Angaur had been in American hands since late 1944. Facing CinCPac elsewhere in the Pacific at the beginning of September 1945 was the surrender of Japanese forces in the Bonins, the rest of the Marianas and Palaus, and the formerly important strongholds of Yap, Truk, and Woleai, and their lesser satellite island garrisons. The occupation of some of these places, their demilitarization, and the evacuation of Japanese nationals was the responsibility of units of the Fleet Marine Force and small naval surface forces assigned to support them. As their tasks were accomplished, the Marine units either were gradually reduced in size until disbanded, withdrawn, or eventually replaced by small naval and Marine garrison forces. (See Map 25.)
The job of evacuating and repatriating Japanese military personnel and civilians was almost overwhelming. The enormity of the problem is best described by the numbers involved—100,000 military and 50,000 civilians. Aggravating the situation was the fact that most American and other shipping was employed to return home liberated Allied POWs and veterans scheduled for demobilization, and to carry back to the Far East replacement drafts and material required by the occupation forces in Japan and China. The solution to the shipping problem was eventually found in the employment of war-weary LSTS and demilitarized Japanese ships, none of which were suitable for other transportation requirements.
The vast majority of the island garrisons that were to surrender were in the area under the control of Vice Admiral George D. Murray, Commander, Marianas. To standardize the conduct of the surrender and occupation program, on 20 August he organized from within his force the Marianas Surrender Acceptance and Occupation Command (TG 94.3). Comprising this group were the following task units and their commanders: Truk Occupation Unit, Brigadier General Robert Blake; Bonins Occupation Unit, Colonel Presley M. Rixey; Palau Occupation Unit, Brigadier General Ford O. Rogers; Guam Evacuation Unit, Major General Henry L. Larsen; and three other units commanded by naval officers.3
A plan was devised standardizing the operations of these units and standardizing such specifics as the format of the
Map 25: Marine Surrender and Occupation Activities 1945–1946
surrender document4 and the conduct of the surrender ceremony, the American flag raising, and the demilitarization of enemy forces, which were to be called thereafter “disarmed military personnel.” In addition, the directive ordered each task unit commander to determine whether any Allied or American prisoners were present on the island being surrendered or if any had been kept there. The commanders also were to conduct spot interrogations and investigations to determine whether any war crimes or atrocities had been committed during the Japanese occupation. According to the task force directive, relations between the victors and the vanquished were to be properly conducted at all times and all military courtesies were to be observed both before and after each surrender and flag-raising ceremony had been completed. Japanese interpretation of these orders often resulted in more than one enlisted Marine or sailor being saluted by all Japanese ranks.
The garrison on Mine Atoll, southwest of Majuro in the Marshalls, surrendered on 22 August—11 days before the Japanese government signed the surrender on the Missouri—and thus became the first enemy group in the Pacific Ocean Areas to do so. On the same day that Mine gave in, the garrison commander on Aka Shima in the Ryukyus surrendered to elements of the Tenth Army, which also accepted the surrender of the forces on Tokashiki Shima in the same island group the next day. On 29 August, the Japanese commander on Morotai, who controlled the garrisons of the entire Halmahera group, capitulated to the commander of the 93rd Infantry Division.
Two days later, the garrison on Marcus Island, located between Wake and the Bonins, was the next major Japanese group to give up. Marcus figured prominently in Navy postwar plans. It was estimated that when the naval air base and terminal proposed for the island began operations, it would shorten the Honolulu–Tokyo air route by 1,049 miles. To administer the air base, CinCPac planned to establish a Marcus Island Command, but the numerous Japanese on the island had to be repatriated before the island could be developed. At the time of the surrender, there were 2,542 Japanese Army and Navy personnel and a number of Japanese civilians remaining—the majority suffering from all forms of tropical maladies and most of them severe malnutrition cases.
Not only were they unfit as laborers, their continued presence on the island presented a threat to the health of the occupation forces.
In order to evacuate the Japanese garrison as quickly and expeditiously as possible, the Marine 11th Military Police Company (Provisional), of the 5th Military Police Battalion, Island Command, Saipan, was sent to Marcus on 2 September. Arriving two days later, the unit remained on Marcus as the island guard until it was disbanded on 16 April 1946.5 Two months earlier, on 18 February, the Heavy Antiaircraft Artillery Battery (Provisional) had been formed on the island. It was redesignated Marine Barracks, Marcus, on 10 April and passed to the administrative control of the Department of the Pacific (MarPac) that same day.6 On 12 May, the Marine Barracks was disbanded, the same day that the Naval Air Base, Marcus, was deactivated.
The next Japanese area commander to yield was Lieutenant General Sadae Inoue, who surrendered on 2 September 1945 the entire Palau Group and all forces under his command, including those on Yap, to Brigadier General Ford O. Rogers, island commander on Peleliu.7 The Peleliu Island Command had been organized on 16 July 1944, as the 3rd Island Base Headquarters under the command of Brigadier General Harold D. Campbell; it was redesignated Island Command, Peleliu, on 16 November. Brigadier General Christian F. Schilt relieved General Campbell as Island Commander on 19 March 1945, and he was in turn relieved on 7 August by General Rogers.
Beginning 15 September, elements of the 111th Infantry occupied Koror, Malakal, and Arakabesan, and liberated 539 Indian and Javanese POWs, most of them suffering from marked malnutrition and beri-beri. By 5 October, all Japanese had been removed to Babelthuap, the largest island of the Palau group. A month later, the Indian and Javanese troops were repatriated. At the end of September, General Rogers sent a small force to reconnoiter islands and atolls in the vicinity of the Palaus to search for missing Allied personnel; none was found.8
On 26 October, less its 2nd Battalion which had been disbanded, the 26th Marines arrived to relieve the 111th Infantry as the Peleliu garrison force. The following March, the Marine Detachment (Provisional), Peleliu, was activated and on the 15th, the 26th Marines was disbanded. The provisional force was redesignated Marine Barracks, Peleliu, on 15 April 1946, when administrative control of the unit passed to the Department of the Pacific.
On the same day that the Palaus surrendered, the commander of Japanese forces on Rota, located northeast of Guam, capitulated to Colonel Howard N. Stent, the representative of the Island Commander of Guam, Major General Henry L. Larsen. Rota was formally occupied on the 4th, and shortly thereafter all of the 2,651 disarmed Japanese military personnel, except for 5 patients, were transferred to POW stockades on Guam. Colonel Gale T. Cummings was appointed the temporary island commander of Rota, and Marine and Seabee forces under his command immediately began to repair the airstrip on the island, completing the task by the 1st of October.
The largest enemy force in the Central Pacific submitted on 2 September, when senior Japanese Army and Navy officers on Truk signed the instrument of surrender. Preparations for this act and the occupation of the former enemy territory were initiated on 30 August, when Brigadier General Leo D. Hermle, Deputy Island Commander, Guam, discussed with Vice Admiral Chuichi Hara, commander of the Fourth Fleet, and Lieutenant General Shunsaburo Mugikura. the Thirty-first Army commander. the steps to be taken for the surrender of all personnel and areas under their command.
Regarding his part in the presurrender discussions with the Japanese, General Hermle recalled:–
I carried out this mission under the orders of Vice Admiral Murray who furnished me a staff of about 12 officers, mostly technicians such as aviators, harbor defense [experts], engineers and two interpreters, etc. Contact with the Japanese on Truk was made from Guam via radio. We left Guam in the evening, one half the staff with me aboard a destroyer and the other half aboard a D.E. [destroyer escort]. We anchored off Dublon, Truk, the next morning.
Japanese officials had been instructed, via radio, to approach the destroyer aboard a small boat displaying a white flag. An admiral and a general came aboard accompanied by a small staff. None of the Japanese would admit that they understood English, so all negotiations were conducted through the interpreters. I informed the Japanese that Vice Admiral Murray would take their formal surrender aboard his flagship and that they would receive further instructions concerning this matter by radio. They were informed that at the surrender they would be required to furnish lists of personnel, ships, planes, harbor defenses, etc. ... At all times, they were very cooperative and the conference proceeded to a satisfactory conclusion in a few hours. During the conference, the captain of the destroyer gave them a light lunch for which they expressed great satisfaction.9
By signing the terms of surrender on 2 September on board USS Portland, Admiral Murray’s flagship, General Mugikura committed the troops on the following islands under his control to
lay down their arms and await American occupation: Truk, Wake, the Palaus, Mortlake (Nomoi), Ponape, Kusaie, Jaluit, Maloelap, Wotje, Puluwat, and Woleai, and Mine, Rota, and Pagan, which had already capitulated. In addition to these Army-controlled islands, the following bases under the control of the Navy were pledged to surrender at the same time by the signature of Admiral Hara: Namoluk, Nauru, and Ocean. When the military capitulated, Rear Admiral Aritaka Aihara, IJN (Retired), head of the Eastern Branch of the South Seas Government—a Japanese agency with headquarters on Truk—signed for the 9,000 civilians there and for those on the other islands within his jurisdiction.10
When an actual survey of the forces on Truk was made later, a total of 38,355 soldiers and sailors—including 3,345 Korean military personnel—was counted. In addition, a census of the civilians in the islands totaled 11,486, of which 1,338 were Japanese, 252 Korean, 9,082 native Caroline Islanders, 793 natives of Nauru, 8 Germans, 7 Spaniards, and 6 Chinese.
On the larger islands of Truk were such major Japanese military installations as bomber and fighter strips, seadromes, submarine and torpedo boat bases, ammunition magazines for weapons of all calibers and types, coast artillery defense installations, and other military facilities. All of these had to be demilitarized, dismantled, or destroyed. But first, the many sick Japanese on them had to be either treated and repatriated or evacuated.
Except for receipt of their regular share of American naval and air bombardments, some of the bypassed Japanese island garrisons did not fare too badly, especially if they had been based on one of the lush and fertile Pacific islands where they could raise their own food. There are some cases on record where Japanese commanders upon surrendering refused offers of food from the Americans because the garrison had a supply that was sufficient to maintain its members until they were embarked for return to the Home Islands.
Moen, one of the chief islands of Truk, was not a tropical paradise. When the occupation forces went ashore there, they found that bugs and worms had so ravaged the sweet potato crop, on which the Japanese garrison had so largely depended for subsistence, that all of the troops were suffering from malnutrition.
Rank upon rank of ‘living scarecrows lined up along the route of the inspecting party—men with ankles as thin as skinny wrists, with sunken cheeks, and with every rib showing sharply.’11
Three days before the surrender date, Brigadier General Robert Blake was designated Prospective Island Commander, Truk, a designation which was changed on 27 September to Prospective Commanding General, Occupation Forces, Truk and Central Carolines. The mission of his command was to occupy and develop Truk “as a fleet anchorage with facilities ashore limited to recreational purposes and for the support of
assigned aircraft and the servicing of transient aircraft.”12 With the aid of a small staff under the jurisdiction of the Island Commander, Guam, General Blake organized the unit that was to comprise the Truk Occupation Force. Because of the urgency of the Marine Corps demobilization program, the unit was formed slowly. Initial administrative duties were undertaken by the staff of the 2nd Provisional Antiaircraft Artillery Group before it was disbanded. The headquarters of this group, however, provided the nucleus for the staff of the occupation force. The first detail of the new force to report in was the military government unit. A Base Headquarters Company (Provisional), was activated on 1 October 1945. It was formed according to the T/O of a Provisional Brigade Headquarters Company, and did not reach full strength until shortly before it departed for Truk.
In keeping with the future tasks of the force, elements of the 29th Naval Construction Battalion and Acorn 5213 were assembled from bases all over the western Pacific. Both of these units also suffered from the loss of skilled and experienced artisans.
On 14 November, the 2nd Battalion, 21st Marines, 3rd Marine Division (then still on Guam), came under the control of the occupation force. The commander of 2/21, Lieutenant Colonel Lyman D. Spurlock, and a small detachment of Marines from the battalion had been sent to Truk in September to supervise the evacuation of Japanese personnel and Koreans, Okinawans, and Formosans, who had been members of Japanese-controlled forces. On 28 October, Spur- Iock was relieved by his executive officer, Major Robert J. Picardi, who remained in charge of the evacuation program until Lieutenant Colonel Spurlock returned to Truk on 25 November with the rest of 2/21 and the occupation force.
To that date, 6,696 Japanese civilian and military and Japanese-controlled forces, and their wives and children, had been repatriated; by December, this number had risen to 20,410, leaving 19,575 remaining in the islands. In January, 14,298 more evacuees left Truk, and in February, 1,426. At the end of April 1946, only 3,811 disarmed military personnel and their families remained, most of them working as laborers and assisting in the destruction of Japanese arms, fortifications, and munitions. The remarkable factor in the history of all of the former Japanese possessions in the Pacific that were surrendered to and occupied by American forces is the high degree of cooperation, docility, and lack of rancor on the part of the losers. There were few incidents of Japanese intransigence; those that did occur took place among the accused war criminals, who were usually more confused and contrite than sullen and unremitting.
One mission common to all Allied occupation and surrender groups was to investigate alleged Japanese war crimes and atrocities, and hunt down and imprison until their trial those accused of such acts.14 By the time that war crimes
tribunals had been convened, a considerable number of accused Japanese were being held in stockades on the various islands under Allied control throughout the Pacific. If evidence of an alleged crime was discovered after the accused had been repatriated to Japan, depositions were taken and presented to Allied tribunals convened in that country. During the first few months of the Truk occupation, General Blake’s investigators had uncovered evidence sufficiently damning to warrant apprehension and detention of 42 individuals. Since no tribunals were held on Truk, the detainees were tried elsewhere depending upon which of the Allied governments had paramount jurisdiction.15
Following the raising of the American flag on 25 November over the island group formerly held by the Japanese, General Blake’s forces conducted a search of Truk and its neighboring islets for missing Allied personnel; none were found.
On 26 February 1946, the Base Headquarters Company, Occupation Forces, Truk and Central Caroline Islands, was redesignated the Marine Detachment (Provisional), Truk. Personnel to expand the new detachment to its authorized strength were low-point personnel transferred from 2/21. The next day, the battalion was detached from General Blake’s command and returned to Guam, where it was disbanded on 5 March. On 15 April, the occupation forces command designation was changed to Commander, Truk and Central Caroline Islands. Exactly one month later, General Blake was relieved by a naval officer, who had the additional duties and title of Commander, Naval Air Base, Truk. In July 1946, the complement of the provisional Marine detachment was reduced from a strength of 256 to 42 men. On 12 October, administrative control of the detachment passed to MarPac.
Wake Island, which had been captured by the Japanese on 24 December 1941, was regained by the Americans on 4 September 1945, when Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara surrendered the forces under his command to the commander of the 4th MAW, Brigadier General Lawson H.M. Sanderson, who was the representative of the Commander, Marshalls–Gilberts Area, for the ceremony.16
Following his appearance on the Levy (DE-162) on 4 September to receive and sign the surrender documents, Admiral Sakaibara departed from the ship to make preparations ashore for the American flag to be raised that same afternoon. The first American again to set foot on Wake when General Sanderson’s party arrived was Colonel Walter L. J. Bayler, famed as the “last man off Wake Island.”17 At 1330:
To the Colors sounds as the American flag is raised over Wake Island for the first time since December 1941. (USMC 133686)
With the platoon at ‘Present Arms,’ with both American and Japanese saluting, the Colors were then hoisted and two-blocked while the notes of ‘To the Colors’ were sounded on the bugle. As the Colors reached the peak of the flag pole, the Levy commenced and completed firing a twenty-one gun salute.18
Although a Japanese garrison of 609 Army and 653 naval personnel had surrendered, this total was only a small fraction of the total number of Japanese that were isolated on the island from the time it was first bypassed by the Americans. Since that time, American bombs and shells had killed 600 of the enemy, 1,288 had died of malnutrition and disease, and 974 had been evacuated to the Home Islands as hospital cases. Of those remaining when the Americans arrived, 405 were ill—200 of these bedridden. Immediately upon occupying the island, American authorities sent food and medical supplies to succor the garrison.
In accordance with CinCPac plans, Wake was designated a Naval Air Facility on 4 September. Occupation forces arrived beginning the 7th, including a Marine detachment consisting of 2 officers and 54 enlisted from Engebi. These forces at once concentrated on repairing the airstrip, disposing of mines, destroying Japanese ammunition and bombs, and establishing a shore-based communication establishment. An inspection of existing air facilities disclosed that the east-west strip of the airfield was in good condition and capable of landing planes of any type or size. The seaplane lane formerly used by Pan American Airways flying clippers was re-marked during the first few weeks of the reoccupation, and mooring buoys for seaplanes were also placed during this period.
By the middle of September, all Japanese had been removed from Wake, the chief island of the atoll, to Peale and Wilkes Islands.19 All Japanese, with the exception of Admiral Sakaibara and 16 commissioned and noncommissioned officers, were repatriated by 1 November 1945. The admiral and the others were temporarily detained before their transfer to Kwajalein for further investigation in their responsibility in the alleged execution of approximately 100 American civilian workers in October 1943.
Wake was officially commissioned as an Island Command and a Naval Air Base on 1 November, with a naval officer installed as the commander of both the island and the air base. On 14 January 1946, the Marine Detachment (Provisional), Wake, consisting of 5 officers and 110 enlisted was established, Less than a month later, on 10 February, the unit was redesignated Marine Detachment (Provisional), Eniwetok, and transferred there with orders to disband on conclusion of Operation CROSSROADS, the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. On 10 December, the detachment was disbanded.
Eight days after the provisional detachment left Wake, a Marine Heavy Antiaircraft Artillery Battery (Provisional), Wake, was activated. Like other provisional units formed in this period, the strength of the battery was 5 officers and 110 enlisted Marines. In
view of the decreasing importance of Wake in postwar plans, the battery was disbanded on 19 August 1946.
Another important Japanese capitulation occurred on 3 September 1945, when Lieutenant General Yosio Tachibana, senior commander of the Japanese forces in the Ogasawara Gunto (Bonin Islands) surrendered to Commodore John H. Magruder, Jr. aboard USS Dunlap, outside the harbor of Chichi Jima. Until the fall of Iwo Jima and his death, the former commander of the Bonins forces, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi had made his headquarters on that volcanic island. After Kuribayashi’s death, the subcommander of the Bonins succeeded to command and moved the headquarters to Chichi Jima.
Approximately 140 nautical miles northeast of Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima was seriously considered by American planners as a potential target for an amphibious landing.20 Chichi Jima was dropped in favor of Iwo Jima, because, although it had a good protected harbor, its terrain was too rugged to permit the rapid construction of airfields. Even more condemning were the results of photo-reconnaissance missions which showed Chichi Jima to have been more heavily fortified than Iso.21 Confirming this evaluation after the war was the report of the Benin Occupation Forces Commander. Following some preliminary comments, Colonel Rixey wrote:–
This writer has seen Jap defenses from Tarawa to Iwo. Nothing previously seen can compare with coast and artillery defenses ... surrounding Chichi harbor. Concrete emplacements, high in the mountains with steel door openings are too numerous to count. Artillery and machine gun fire which could have been placed on the airfield would have prevented any [force commander’s italics] attempt at a landing there. With camouflage, as practiced by the Japs, in place, NGF spotters would have had a very difficult time locating these cleverly placed positions. ... The location of many of the emplacements, which have to be seen to be appreciated indicate that the Jap plan was to permit an entrance into the harbor or onto the airfield, then to give us the ‘works.’ Most of these positions are inaccessible and many could not have been reached by NGF as they are situated on reverse slopes facing east.22
Survivors of the Japanese garrison on Chichi and Haha Jimas comprised 20,656 Army and Navy personnel and 2,285 civilian laborers who had been transported to and employed in the islands by the military. Additional Japanese garrison troops located on other islands near the Benin group were evacuated by the U.S. Navy.
In mid-September 1945, at the same time that 2/21 was designated as the military element of the Truk Occupation Force, the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division, was designated the military element of the Bonins Occupation Force. Immediately upon receipt of the orders detaching them from parent organizations, both battalions began reorganizing for the move and filling their ranks with volunteers, regulars, and low-point Marines.
On 10 October, the advance echelon of 1/3, consisting of Rixey’s small staff
and 20 military policemen, landed and met the Japanese liaison group headed by Major Yoshitaka Horie. When Colonel Rixey discovered that General Tachibana and Vice Admiral Kunizo Mori, the senior officer in tactical command at Chichi Jima, were not present in the group, he “sent for them to report to me at the dock, which they, of course, complied with.”23
The Marines were the first American troops to set foot in the Bonins since Commodore Perry’s expedition there in 1853.24 Rixey’s group had a primary mission of evacuating and repatriating the Japanese. A secondary task was to destroy the extensive Japanese defenses existing on the island. When the remainder of the battalion arrived on 13 December, it carried with it a large supply of explosives with which to accomplish this mission.
This main body had been designated the Bonins Occupation Force at Guam on 1 December. When it landed on Chichi Jima 12 days later, Colonel Rixey ordered the American flag raised over the former Japanese stronghold. After he had originally landed on 10 October, Colonel Rixey determined that the entire 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, would not be required to garrison the island, to supervise repatriation, and to demilitarize the defenses. He therefore recommended that the Occupation Forces be reduced in strength to 400 men only. He later found that even less troops could have been used because the Japanese were most cooperative and willing to please. It was not necessary to establish a manned boundary between the American and Japanese zones on the island; “A drawn line on a map was sufficient.”25 On 1 June 1946, after fulfilling its assigned mission, 1/3 was disbanded on Chichi Jima, and its Marines were transferred to other FMFPac units in the Pacific and the Far East.
During the several visits to the Bonins by American fast carrier task forces in 1944 and 1945 and the subsequent air and naval gunfire bombardments of those islands, one Marine and several Navy aviators were shot down and listed as missing in action. After Colonel Rixey had assumed his role as the commander of the Bonins, he instituted an investigation to determine the fate of these downed pilots. Soon, Rixey began hearing rumors and receiving anonymous reports concerning the inhumane and barbaric treatment American POWs had received at the hands of their Japanese captors.
Shortly after Colonel Rixey’s arrival on Chichi Jima, a Japanese Coast Guard cutter entered the harbor. On board were Frederick Arthur Savory and his three uncles, all of whom were descendants of Nathaniel Savory, a Massachusetts whaler who had settled in the Bonin Islands in the 1830s. After the fall of Saipan, the Japanese had evacuated the American-Chamorro-Hawaiian family to the Home Islands. While in Japan, Fred Savory had heard rumors spread by soldiers repatriated from Chichi Jima regarding cannibalism on
that island. He passed these stories on to Colonel Rixey.
The morbid story of the Chichi Jima garrison was related in full at the war crimes trials held later at Guam. Two naval aviators—one captured in March 1944 and the other in August after they had parachuted from their disabled aircraft—were bayoneted to death at General Tachibana’s orders following their interrogation. Five more American airmen, one a Marine, were executed after they, too, had been captured when they bailed out of their aircraft. Three were beheaded, one was bayoneted, and another beaten to death. It was upon the flesh of these five that certain members of the Japanese garrison fed. Testimony exonerated the majority of the Chichi Jima command from having been involved in this disgusting incident, and indicated that with the exception of the perpetrators of this foul deed, those who ate the flesh did not know what they were eating.
Reporting his reaction upon learning of the uncivilized actions of the guilty parties, Colonel Rixey wrote: “We were flabbergasted at first. We had expected beheadings, of course. But never cannibalism! What manner of men were these?”26 The war crimes trials of 21 Chichi Jima officers and men were held on Guam during the fall of 1946, and entailed more than 1,000 pages of testimony and exhibits. Of the 21 accused, one officer who had no knowledge of the cannibalism was acquitted. The other 20 were found guilty and given various sentences ranging from death by hanging to life imprisonment and lesser penalties. One was hanged in June; General Tachibana and three of his other officers were executed at Guam on 24 September 1947.27
In quick profusion, the following former Japanese-garrisoned islands in the Central and Western Pacific islands were surrendered to CinCPac representatives in September 1945: Aguijan, Jaluit, Yap, Wotje, Maloelap, the Ryukyus, Kusaie, Ponape, Nauru, Lamotrek, Woleai;28 and in October, Ocean. Some of these little-known islands with unfamiliar names were small and held nothing but a weather station manned by a few Japanese civilians and a slightly larger native population. Military garrisons of various sizes were on some of the larger islands, the size of the force determined by the strategic value that the Japanese had given the island. Regardless of the location or size of the former enemy garrison, the terms of the Potsdam Declaration bound the Allied Powers to permit, and by inference to assist, all Japanese military personnel to return to their homes after they and their organizations had been completely demilitarized. Because American shipping
was fully committed to the support of MacArthur’s occupation and surrender forces and in the return of U.S. servicemen to the States, until they could be repatriated, the disarmed enemy garrisons on the various atolls were supervised, but generally left undisturbed. The Japanese were allowed to fend for themselves from their own gardens until such time that Japanese shipping could be made available to transport them home.
Although American shipping was thoroughly involved in “Magic Carpet,” the return home of combat veterans from the Pacific, and in operations in the Far East, the Japanese had 21 tankers, 101 transports, and 211 freighters still in operating condition after the war. General MacArthur said, however, that there was a more pressing need for these vessels to ship food and clothing to the Home Islands than to repatriate troops from outlying islands. “As of 7 October, according to Domei [the Japanese news agency], only 38,645 troops had been returned from overseas, including the continent of Asia, which meant that some 3,320,000 Japanese Army and 300,000 Navy personnel still remained outside the home islands.”29 CinCPac alleviated the situation somewhat in November, when it began to use amphibious vessels not suited for “Magic Carpet” in the repatriation of Japanese from the Marshalls–Gilberts and Marianas Areas. Liberty ships and LSTs in Philippines ports and at others in the Pacific were assigned to duty as Japanese repatriation vessels. By the end of December 1945, all Japanese military personnel had been evacuated from the Marshalls–Gilberts Area. By 10 January 1946, 73.9 percent of the Japanese nationals, military and civilian, on the islands in the Marianas had been evacuated to Japan. Not included in these groups were the Japanese who had been detained on either Guam or Kwajalein awaiting trial as war criminals or waiting to appear as witnesses at these trials. Nonetheless, before the middle of. 1946, most disarmed military personnel had been returned to their homes in Japan, Korea, Okinawa, or Formosa, and thus many of the provisional Marine detachments that had been formed to supervise their repatriation could be deactivated. The Marine forces in the Pacific were ready then to phase into their postwar garrison programs.
Peacetime Garrison Forces30
By 1 October 1946, of the 10 provisional Marine detachments and the military elements of occupation forces that
had been formed since the end of the war,31 all except the ones on Wake, Kwajalein, and Eniwetok were disbanded, redesignated a Marine Barracks, or made a permanent Marine detachment.32 Between April and July 1946, the following redesignations took place on the dates noted: 15 April, Marine Detachment (Provisional), Peleliu, became the Marine Barracks, Peleliu; 20 May, 8th Military Police Battalion (Provisional), became the Marine Barracks, Guam; 10 June, 5th Military Police Battalion (Provisional), became the Marine Barracks Saipan; 20 June, Marine Detachment (Provisional), Samar, became the Marine Barracks, Samar; and 4 July, Marine Detachment (Provisional), Headquarters, Commander, Philippine Sea Frontier, became the Marine Detachment, Commander, Naval Forces, Philippines. The last-named organization was reorganized on 1 January 1947 as the Marine Barracks, Sangley Point, Philippine Islands.
The realignment and reduction of FMF units in the Far East also affected the organization of the garrison forces in the Pacific. For instance, in January 1946, CinCPac notified CNO that he anticipated a drastic reduction in the size and scope of fleet activities at Yokosuka or the remainder of the American occupation of Japan, and recommended that the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines—part of the Yokosuka Occupation Force—be redesignated as the 2nd Separate Guard Battalion (Provisional), FMF, and remain there for interior guard duty. The change in title took place on 15 February 1946. Five months later, the size of the provisional battalion was reduced and on 15 June it became Marine Detachment, Fleet Activities, Yokosuka, and was placed under the administrative control of MarPac.
Based on the provisions of the postwar plans, all of these Marine units were given missions consisting of maintaining internal security and standing interior guard duty at the naval activities to which they had been assigned. In addition, the Marines on Truk, Marcus, and Peleliu islands manned antiaircraft artillery positions, while the garrisons on Guam, Saipan, and Truk had the important and difficult task of guarding and supervising nearly 7,000 Japanese war crimes prisoners and disarmed military personnel.
From 1 June 1946 until 5 May 1949, when the War Criminal Stockade was closed, the Guam garrison was responsible for the custody, discipline, feeding, clothing, and, in some cases, execution of Japanese war criminals confined in its custody. A total of 13 inmates was executed by hanging following their trial and conviction by the War Crimes Commission convened on Guam. Eleven executions were conducted by an Army Officer, a member of the Military Police Corps, who was an official hangman.
During the period he was attached to the Marine Barracks in order to carry out his duties, he trained two enlisted Marines “in the technique of execution by hanging.” They executed the last two war criminals condemned to die after he left.33
On the date that the designations of the various garrisons changed, they were detached from FMFPac and placed under the administrative control of the Department of Pacific, or MarPac as it was both officially and familiarly abbreviated. Operational control of the Pacific garrisons was vested either with the naval activity or the senior naval command on the island to which the Marine unit was assigned.
On the effective date of attachment of the barracks and detachments, MarPac in turn placed them under the control of Marine Garrison Forces (MarGarFor), 14th Naval District, in Honolulu. MarGarFor had been formed on 13 December 1941 in order that all of the various Marine garrison forces in the 14th Naval District could be centrally administered.
Headquarters Marine Corps directed Brigadier General Harry K. Pickett to assume command as Commanding General, MarGarFor, 14th Naval District. Although General Pickett and subsequent commanders functioned as deputies of the commanding general of MarPac, they did not carry the title. At the end of the war, because of the increasing importance of the Honolulu-based command and to ensure an efficient administrative control of the widely separated Marine Corps posts in the Pacific, the MarPac commander recommended that the title of the MarGarFor commander be changed to Commanding General, Pacific Ocean Marine Garrison Force, and that he be assigned as the deputy commander of MarPac.34 The Commandant approved the redesignation, and it became effective on 15 October 1946, when the new title, Commanding General, Marine Garrison Forces, Pacific, appeared.35 The first officer assigned to this command was Brigadier General William A. Worton, who established his headquarters at the Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor, T.H., and reported his assumption of command on the 15th to both CinCPac and MarPac.36
When the Marine Garrison Forces was first organized in 1941, there were only a few barracks and detachments under its command, and all of these were in the Hawaiian Islands and on Johnston and Palmyra Islands. At the end of the war, the number of subordinate units increased considerably; the mission assigned MarGarForPac at the time of its redesignation in 1946 made it responsible for all posts, detachments, offices, and other Marine Corps organizations in the Pacific Ocean Areas with the exception of FMF units, Marine Corps air stations, and shore-based air warning
units.37 On 23 May 1947, MarGarForPac became an administrative command directly under the control of Headquarters Marine Corps. As before, CinCPac had operational control of the Marine posts and stations in the Pacific. The Marine Garrison Forces, Pacific, command was deactivated on 31 August 1948, and the Commanding General, FMFPac, assumed administrative control of all Marine security forces and supporting establishments in the Pacific formerly under the control of MarGarForPac.38
Although it was purely an administrative command throughout seven years of existence, MarGarForPac played an increasing y important role in supervising the constant change in the composition, designation, and number of Marine garrisons in the Pacific during the period 1945–1948. The assumption of control over these Marine outposts by FMFPac meant that the Marine Corps transition to peacetime status had been accomplished and security forces and supporting establishments in the Pacific were stabilized—for the time being, at any rate. Closely paralleling the steps leading to stabilization of these non- Fleet Marine Force organizations were the day-to-day changes that carried FMF units from a war to peacetime character.
Stabilization of the FMF39
By the beginning of 1947, the Marine Corps had adjusted to operating on a peacetime level with a complement drastically reduced from a peak strength; there were 92,222 Marines on active duty on 30 June 1947.40 Because of major organizational changes and the constant turnover of personnel in activities where trained and experienced Marines were needed, the retention of key Marines was especially critical in Marine logistical, aviation, and recruit training units. The problem was all the more grave in face of the missions assigned to the Marine Corps for Fiscal Year 1947.41 These missions were a Combination of those previously assigned in accordance with the postwar program of the Corps and those foreshadowing what the National Security Act of 1947 and later amendments would assign.
In essence, the Marine Corps was:
a. To provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components for service with the fleet in the seizure or defense of advance naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of naval campaigns.
b. To develop in coordination with other armed services, those phases of amphibious operations which pertain to the tactics, techniques and equipment employed by landing forces.
c. To provide detachments and organizations for service on armed vessels of the Navy.
d. To provide security detachments for the protection of naval property at naval stations and bases.
e. To be prepared in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans for the expansion of the peacetime components to meet the needs of war.
f. In addition, to maintain such activities as necessary to insure the adequate administration, supply, training and technical directions of personnel and units engaged in accomplishment of the basic missions.42
To meet the challenges engendered by these missions and at the same time to reduce its size to reflect peacetime tasks, the Marine Corps reviewed and revamped the assignments given to its major components. In conjunction with Headquarters Marine Corps and the Marine Corps Schools, the Fleet Marine Force was to continue its role as stated in paragraph (b) quoted above. Marine detachments afloat on carriers, battleships, and cruisers were to provide a trained nucleus for the ships’ landing forces, gun crews as required, and local security for the vessels. Marine detachments on transports would perform the functions of transport quartermasters and local security as directed. Marines in security forces assigned to naval shore establishments within and outside of the continental limits of the United States would provide necessary internal security; those detachments assigned to such establishments outside of the United States would provide external security in accordance with specifically assigned missions. In order to maintain the Marine Corps and to assist it in accomplishing its missions, Marine supporting activities, such as logistic establishments, recruit training depots, personnel procurement offices, headquarters establishments, and training activities, would procure, equip, train, and administer Marine personnel.43
During the last two war years, the FMF had been organized in accordance with the F-Series Tables of Organization, by which a Marine division consisted of a headquarters battalion, tank, engineer, and pioneer battalions, service troops, an artillery regiment, and three infantry regiments, totaling 843 officers and 15,548 enlisted, or 16,391 Marines overall. A reinforced regiment, or RCT, consisted of the infantry regiment itself, an artillery battalion, engineer, pioneer, transportation, ordnance, service and supply, medical, and tank companies, a reconnaissance platoon, and a band section, all totaling 4,585 Marines. Under the G-Series T/O (peace),44 approved 4 September 1945, the Marine Corps reorganized to reflect its postwar size and conditions at that time. A Marine division consisted of the same components
as before, but its strength was increased to 962 officers and 17,182 enlisted Marines, or a total of 18,144. While the size of the division was increased, the number of Marine divisions scheduled for active service according to postwar plans had dropped to two. As soon as the G-Series T/O was authorized, all Marine organizations affected by it were reconstituted. Many units, because of their missions as well as their depleted states, could be reorganized at only 90 percent of their authorized strength. During the period February–April 1946, the 1st Marine Division in China and a few other units had dropped down to 80 percent of authorized strength. To rectify the situation, the Commandant ordered them to organize on the basis of the prevailing G-Series T/O, and beefed up their strengths slightly to reflect their current assignments.
In late 1945, two of the Marine divisions that had served so spectacularly in the Pacific during their tours in combat were disbanded. The 4th Marine Division, which had been formally activated on 16 August 1943 at Camp Pendleton, returned to the United States from Maui on 3 November 1945 and its units disbanded that month, again at Camp Pendleton. Following the earlier formation of some of its organic units, the 3rd Division had been activated on 16 September 1942, also at Camp Pendleton like the 4th Division. A little more than three years later, on 28 December 1945, the 3rd—less 1/3 in the Bonins and 2/21 on Truk—was disbanded on Guam. Replacement drafts consisting of low-point men boarded CVES for the trip to China, where they were to join the 1st Marine Division; high-point Marines scheduled for discharge or reassignment were transferred to a transient center on Guam, where they awaited transportation to the States.
From September 1945 to June 1947, FMFPac was reduced in size until it approached the postwar form it would take. Many changes in the composition and designation of FMFPac units occurring in this period will be discussed later when the occupations of Japan and North China are considered. On 30 June 1947, FMFPac strength was 19,125 Marines in units at Camp Pendleton, the Hawaiian Islands, China, and Guam. In the months leading to this date, other major Marine commands, FMF and non-FMF, were formed.
On 22 January 1946, the Commandant directed the Commanding General, Marine Barracks, Quantico, to form a special infantry brigade to be prepared for expeditionary service and maintained in a state of readiness. The headquarters and two battalions of the 1st Special Marine Brigade was formed at Quantico, and the 3rd Battalion was formed at Camp Lejeune. The following month, on 4 February, administrative and operational control of the brigade passed to the brigade commander, Brigadier General Oliver P. Smith. Four days later, General Smith was directed to maintain his command on two weeks readiness, and to report to the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet (CinCLant), for planning purposes. Although organized along the basic lines of a FMF team, the brigade was not part of the Fleet Marine Force. In May 1946, it conducted the only major Marine Corps training mission undertaken during that fiscal year, a joint amphibious
exercise in the Caribbean area. At the end of July, General Smith was directed to disband the 1st Battalion at Quantico on 10 August. The brigade headquarters and the 2nd Battalion, which had joined the 3rd Battalion at Camp Lejeune in March, were disbanded on 31 August.45
Another significant event occurring in 1946 was the activation on 16 December of Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic (FMFlant), under the operational control of CinCLant. Three days before its formation, the Commanding General, 2nd Marine Division, at Camp Lejeune, was directed to activate FMFLant and to act as its commanding general in addition to his duties as head of the 2nd Division. He was to assume command of the ground units comprising the force on the 16th, and to take over the aviation units on 2 January 1947.
In December 1946, Marine aviation commands in the Atlantic and Pacific areas were designated as subordinate units of the Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic and Pacific, respectively. In the process of this change, the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at Cherry Point was redesignated Aircraft, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic.
Marine aviation went through as many changes as the ground component following the end of hostilities, and was likewise concerned with reaching its postwar level as quickly as possible. These transitions required the rapid but controlled demobilization of personnel and deactivation of units and stations without the loss of a high state of combat readiness. The first phase of the program relating to the withdrawal of overseas units depended on future requirements of Marine aviation in the Pacific.
The deployments of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing and its four groups to China and MAG-31 to Japan were the last World War II tactical operations of AirFMFPac. It then became possible for the aviation command to plan for the rotation of excess units and personnel to the States, and the redeployment began when transportation became available. The strength of AirFMFPac on 1 September 1945 totaled 43,819 Marines: 13 months later, this force had been reduced 90 percent to a total of 4,693. The loss of experienced personnel created as much of a problem in the air units as it had in the ground organizations. As demobilization progressed, approximately 80 percent of the replacements sent to AirFMFPac to fill in the gaps were inexperienced and untrained insofar as the technical requirements of that command were concerned. As a result, the squadrons and groups soon reached the point where they had insufficient numbers of experienced key personnel, not only for maintaining operational functions but also for training the inexperienced Marines. This situation was eased somewhat when the Commandant immediately ordered overseas a large number of fully qualified noncommissioned officers. As a result, AirFMFPac was able to continue essential operations with some degree of efficiency and, in effect, improve them as the new personnel were trained and became more fully qualified.
A second personnel problem engendered by demobilization was the
acute shortage of personnel to fill the jobs formerly held by aviation ground officers. During the war, most aviation ground billets were filled by nonflying officers specifically trained for those positions which could be filled by a ground officer. This practice permitted the fulltime assignment of pilots to flying duties. Since the postwar aviation T/Os did not include provisions for the assignment of ground officers to the wings and their subordinate commands, those organizations had to set up extensive training programs to requalify pilots for the ground billets, Once they were trained in and fulfilling the functions of communications, ordnance, engineering, and air combat intelligence officers, the pilots continued regular flight duties in order to maintain proficiency in their primary assignment.
Owing to the constant transfer of pilots and skilled maintenance personnel, the operations of the fighter squadrons were reduced to a bare minimum. Even harder hit were the transport squadrons, whose pilots were released faster than those of the other tactical squadrons. When the workloads of the transport squadrons increased greatly because they were employed to carry supplies to the units in the Western Pacific and the Far East—and to transfer personnel scheduled for discharge back to the States—the demand for the services of transport pilots increased accordingly. To meet the demand, pilots qualified to fly other types of aircraft were transferred from overseas and Stateside tactical squadrons to the transport units for immediate retraining.
Concurrent with the release and transfer of aviation personnel were the deactivation and transfer of many major and subordinate aircraft organizations. On 31 December 1945, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing was decommissioned at Ewa. The 2nd MAW transferred from Okinawa to Gherry Point, where it was to be based, on 15 February 1946. The next month, on 13 March, the 4th MAW closed its headquarters on Guam and departed for the west coast, where it was to be based. The units attached to these Stateside-bound wings were transferred to the headquarters of other Marine organizations in the islands, and returned to the United States when transportation became available for their redeployment.
Completing the postwar roll-up of Marine aviation in the Pacific was the departure of MAG-31 from Yokosuka for the United States on 20 June. The 1st MAW remained in China with one transport and two observation squadrons and MAG-24, which was composed of three VMFs and one VMF(N). MAG-15, the only Marine aviation command remaining in the Hawaiian Islands, was based at Ewa with two VMRs; the group also had a fighter squadron based at Midway. With its peacetime functions stabilized by October 1946, AirFMFPac operations in the latter part of the year consisted mainly of training replacements and routing trans-Pacific supply and replacement personnel passenger flights.
In the 22 months following the signing of the Japanese surrender at Tokyo T3ay, the strength of the Marine Corps was reduced from a peak of 485,837 on 1 September 1945 to a low of 92,222 on
30 June 1947. While this decrease represented a drop of 82 percent, the 1947 figure was considerably greater than 28,2777, the size of the Corps on 1 July 1940. Although some problems occurred during the transition from war to peace, Marine units adjusted to the various situations with which they were confronted and continued to operate on a relatively high level of efficiency.
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