Saipan 1944:
Scenario Preview, Part Eight
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
April 2025

Panzer Grenadier: Saipan 1944 was the last game in our lineup calling for the old Third Edition series rulebook. I’d long planned for its overhaul, and the last time we ran out of boxes, scenario books and maps, I let it fall out of print for conversion into a Playbook edition (a game built around a book rather than stuck in a box). Since most boxed game scenario books need to be laid out again for the new printing format, it’s also an opportunity to re-work them as needed.

Every scenario needed to be brought up to the new rules standard. I also took the opportunity to go over the history behind the game; the original relied heavily on American official histories and secondary works. Since Saipan 1944’s initial publication, a wealth of Japanese-language sources has become available online, including the exhaustive “War History Series” from Japan’s National Defense Training Institute. And perhaps more importantly, machine translation tools are now available and of much better quality than just a few years ago (leaving me embittered over the years I spent in language studies). The War History Series is the equivalent of an official history, but much more blunt in its assessments than the usual such, which often report events as the institution wishes they had happened and avoid criticism of leaders still living or armed forces still existing.

That allowed me to correct a number of scenarios, to make sure the text (introduction and conclusion) matched the action described. The American works appear to rely on Marine and Army accounts that spend most of their ink slagging each other (as though the Smith v. Smith pillow fight was the main event), and pay relatively little attention to the Japanese. Thus the sizeable contingent of Imperial Japanese Navy ground forces on Saipan (SNLF and Base Defense) simply disappear after the American landings (the Marine history implies that they all died on the beaches). This is not so; a number of the actions ascribed to the Army were in fact fought by naval troops. Fortunately, the game includes plenty of bright blue Navy pieces.

Chapter Eight
The North End
Saipan had been a Japanese mandated territory since 1919, and at the start of World War II it had a population of about 29,000 Japanese civilians (mostly Okinawans working in the sugar cane industry) and about 3,000 locals. Until early 1944, Saipan (Saiho to the Japanese) remained peaceful: the local cinema still showed movies, sugar and coffee continued to be harvested. But shipments to Japan slowed as the ships themselves became scarce. Only in the months just prior to the American invasion did the local government begin sending civilians back to Japan on the same transports that brought troop reinforcements. The last such convoy was caught by an American air attack during the preliminary bombardment of Saipan; fourteen of fifteen transports were sunk and thousands of evacuees killed.

Open in new tab to embiggen this map.

As the Japanese 31st Army withdrew slowly northward, toward Marpi Point on the tip of Saipan, the civilian population fled ahead of them. The American “rice devils” (a fairly nasty racial slur of the time) had a reputation for torturing and massacring prisoners, helped along by re-publication of a Life Magazine photo showing a young American woman posing with the skull of a Japanese soldier that her fiancé had sent her as a souvenir from Guadalcanal.

American artillery and aircraft bombarded any group of Japanese spotted in the open, whether military or civilian. Civilians hiding in caves in the center of the island were burned out by flamethrowers, as was at least one Japanese field hospital crowded with wounded.

This does not seem to have overly troubled their government. Not until 28 June, nearly two weeks after the American landings, did the Imperial General Headquarters convene a conference to discuss the fate of Saipan’s civilian population. “It is not appropriate for the government to order people to die,” the conference decided. “It is preferable for civilians to commit suicide, but since we cannot tell them to die, we will inevitably allow them to surrender to the U.S. military.”

By this point, the Japanese defenders had little organization left, and nearly no ammunition or food. Many soldiers had lost their weapons. Yet the island’s commanders continued to ask Tokyo for reinforcements, claiming that the island could be held, and ordered construction troops to work frantically to complete the Marpi Point airfield at the island’s northern tip, so that troops could be airlifted to Saipan and fighter planes could be stationed there to ward off American air power.

Sanity had fled. There would be no surrender on Saipan.

Scenario Thirty-Seven
Mutcho Point
4 July 1944
Surviving Japanese defenders of Garapan, mostly naval ground troops, retreated to nearby Mutcho Point. There they had still-intact concrete shelters in which to rally, and could find some limited supplies of food and ammunition. A heavy anti-aircraft battery further up the coast provided some limited artillery support, firing airbursts over the attacking Marines. The rest of 2nd Marine Division had pulled out of the line, but one unlucky battalion drew one final assignment.

Conclusion
The Japanese Type 10 120mm dual-purpose anti-aircraft and coast-defense gun was not a particularly good weapon, but with a well-trained and dedicated crew it could do a great deal of damage to the Emperor’s enemies. The battery north of Mutcho Point was one of the few still in operation, and despite American attempts to knock it out the gunner fought their weapons with bravery and skill. That did not, ultimately, save the naval troops holed up on the point.

Notes
That 120mm anti-aircraft battery (now shifted off-board, where it actually belongs) is every bit as deadly as the scenario notes make out. The Japanese defense is predicated on those guns, and the Marines just have to take the pounding.

Scenario Thirty-Eight
Valley of Hell
6 July 1944
The Japanese Army-Navy Joint Headquarters formally had command of the Saipan defense, but had long since lost control of its troops. They retreated to a forbidding hollow that Japanese soldiers named Jigokudani (“Valley of Hell”) to make their final stand, and sent one final message to Tokyo: “The garrison on the island believes to the very end that our air force or reinforcements will arrive.”

Conclusion
The Japanese defenders of the basin the Marines named “Paradise Valley” actually fought off the Marine attack, but their leaders saw no way out. At 10 a.m. the next morning, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, command naval troops on Saipan, 31st Army acting commander Keiji Igeta, and 43rd Division commander Yoshitsugu Saito took their places seated on a well-swept pedestal and plunged their swords into their stomachs, after which an aide standing ready shot each in the head.

Notes
The Japanese have fairly good numbers in this little scenario, strong defenses and a fair amount of machine gun support. The Marines can call on the aid of Satan as well as foot-borne flamethrowers, and these are going to have to do the heavy work of clearing the Japanese positions.

Scenario Thirty-Nine
Rice Demons
7 July 1944
Before committing ritual suicide, the three senior commanders of Saipan’s defenders issued a final order for their men to attack the Americans in one massive charge:

We will search for the rice demons and advance to attack them, killing at least ten people per person, and then all of us will die in honor. I expect all of our troops to fight bravely, and I will die in honor with all of you, praying for the long life of the Emperor and the prosperity of the Imperial nation.

More than 4,000 Japanese – soldiers, sailors, and civilian men and women – took part in the three-pronged mass suicide attack.

Conclusion
The brunt of the attack fell on two battalions of the Army’s 105th Infantry Regiment, which suffered 406 men killed and 512 wounded. Lt. Col. William J. O’Brien of the 1st Battalion led his men from the front, a pistol in each hand as he fought the oncoming Japanese at point-blank range. Hit repeatedly, he shrugged off the medics who tried to drag him away and bellowed defiance to his men. His bullets gone, he threw the empty weapons at his attackers, climbed onto a jeep, and proceeded to mow down dozens of Japanese with its .50-caliber machine gun until he was dragged down to be stabbed repeatedly by swords, bayonets, and bamboo spears. Tanks soon arrived to stem the attack, while the 27th Infantry Division’s artillery poured 2,666 rounds into the attacking mob in less than an hour of firing. Burial teams would later count 4,311 Japanese corpses.

Notes
The Japanese fling themselves on the Americans with everything they’ve got, even a small Navy tank unit. The Marines have massive firepower on hand. This is not going to end well for the Emperor.

Scenario Forty
Prudential Hill
7 July 1944
One of the last Japanese strongpoints on Saipan, nick-named Prudential Hill, barred the 4th Marine Division’s route to the Marpi Point airfield, the last objective on Saipan. Japanese resistance now weakened as the most determined defenders had flung themselves into the final suicidal mass charge. But enough remained to make the hill a formidable obstacle.

Conclusion
The last redoubt proved a stubborn obstacle; the Marines deployed truck-mounted rocket launchers in a direct-fire role against the fortified caves dotting the cliff faces, along with rocket-firing gunboats bobbing offshore. This would be the final organized resistance of the campaign, but the 27th Infantry Division would remain on the island for months seeking out hidden pockets of Japanese holdouts, and civilians still concealed in caves and other hideouts. The last large-scale surrender would come on 27 November 1945, when 47 men of the 18th Infantry Medical Unit marched out of the highlands in formation, singing the Japanese foot soldier’s traditional chorus, “The True Nature of Infantry.”

Notes
The last battle brings some tired Marines with many weapons against a small Japanese garrison on a hill. There’s nowhere left to retreat; if a single Japanese unit survives the game, the Japanese win.

And that’s all for Saipan 1944.

Click here to order Saipan 1944 right now.
Please allow an extra four weeks for delivery.

Pacific Islands Package
      Saipan 1944 (Playbook edition)
      Marianas 1944
      Leyte 1944
Retail Price: $156.97
Package Price: $125
Gold Club Price: $100
You can order the Pacific Package right here.
Please allow an extra four weeks for delivery.

Sign up for our newsletter right here. Your info will never be sold or transferred; we'll just use it to update you on new games and new offers.

Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

Daily Content includes no AI-generated content or third-party ads. We work hard to keep it that way, and that’s a lot of work. You can help us keep things that way with your gift through this link right here.