Saipan 1944:
Scenario Preview, Part Three
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2025

One of my objectives, when designing the game that became Panzer Grenadier, was to craft one universal set of rules that would be applicable in any theater of the Second World War. You could then use different games to judge the effectiveness of the different armies of World War II, because my 14-year-old self knew that the game would be staggeringly successful and spawn a great many sequels.

In Panzer Grenadier: Saipan 1944, designer Jay Townsend took the system to the Pacific island of Saipan, a wildly different environment that the steppes of Ukraine or dense farms of Normandy, and the scene of a very different campaign. That lets players compare the different theaters, and see the challenges facing each side rather than just reading about them. Japan depends on the fighting spirit of her soldiers to overcome material deficiencies well beyond anything experienced by the Germans in Europe, yet the Japanese can still mount a stout defense. The Marines are Marines, making for a relentless advance against an immovable foe.

Let’s have a look at the third chapter.

Chapter Three
Aslito Airfield
By the invasion’s third day, the American commanders had good reason to feel satisfied. They had two Marine divisions ashore, plus one regiment of the Army’s 27th Infantry Division. The front-line battalions had sorted themselves out, and were ready for the next phase of the conquest of Saipan. The Japanese had been pushed back out of artillery range of the landing beaches, allowing support units, artillery, ammunition, and other supplies to flow into the beachhead.

Now the Americans could flex their considerable muscle. Second Marine Division would push north and north-east from the beachhead, looking to secure the island’s capital at Garapan on the west coast and the dominating heights in the center of Saipan. Fourth Marine Division, bolstered by the Army’s 165th Infantry Regiment, would drive directly eastwards to secure Aslito Airfield.

Built by the Japanese in 1933 (in direct contravention of their mandate), the field had been expanded in 1937; today it serves as Saipan International Airport. In 1944 the Japanese operated two squadrons of A6M2 Navy fighters from Aslito. The Americans planned to repair the field and put it into operation for their own planes (P47 fighters, which excelled in the ground-support role) as soon as possible, without waiting for the rest of the island to fall. That made the airfield’s capture of prime importance to the campaign.

Scenario Thirteen
Orphan Battalion
17 June 1944
In February 1944, Lt. Col. Guy Tannyhill formed the Second Separate Marine Infantry Battalion in Hawaii from 2nd Marine Division troops who had recovered from wounds suffered on Tarawa or other detached duties. The “orphan battalion,” intended to form part of the new 6th Marine Division as the 1/29th Marines, went to Saipan to participate in the invasion. On the invasion’s third day, it went forward to secure parts of the O-1 ridge line on the 2nd Marine Division’s right flank.

Conclusion
With Tannyhill wounded almost immediately, Lt. Col. Rathvon M. Tompkins - who as a major general would lead the 3rd Marine Division’s bitter defense of Khe Sanh in 1968 - took charge. Rounding up four Sherman tanks that he found wandering in search of a target, Tompkins pointed them at the Japanese. Their covering fire allowed the Marine riflemen to eject the Japanese from their positions, including a troublesome fortified cave.

Notes
This is another small scenario, with a small force of Marines trying to winkle an even smaller – but very tough – force of Japanese out of prepared positions in swamps and caves. The Marines have some good support, and they’re going to need all of it.

Scenario Fourteen
Faugh a Ballagh
17 June 1944
Two battalions of the U.S. Army’s 165th Infantry Regiment, the “Fighting 69th” of Great War fame, landed on Saipan at about 0115 on 17 June. At 0330, Fourth Marine Division informed regimental commander Col. Gerard W. Kelley that his regiment would attack in four hours’ time. The New York National Guardsmen made good progress through the morning, until they reached a ridgeline just in front of their objective, Aslito Airfield.

Conclusion
What happened in front of the airfield would be disputed between the Army and Marines. Kelley reported heavy resistance, and his subordinates called for both air support and Marine artillery fire to help suppress it. Fourth Marine Division pointed out that the 25th Marines had advanced north of the airfield more than a mile deeper into Japanese-held areas than the Army regiment. The U.S. Marine official history dances on the edge of accusing Kelley of cowardice under fire (“Although Marine patrols discovered that Aslito field had been abandoned, Colonel Kelley was unwilling to occupy it with elements of his 165th Infantry.”). Whatever the truth (Kelley, a West Point grad, had been decorated for his heroism on Makin Island the previous November), Aslito Airfield remained in Japanese hands.

Notes
It’s the first appearance of Army troops in Saipan, in a pretty simple scenario: the American player sets up, the Japanese then sets up right on top of the Americans, and attacks madly. It’s actually pretty cool to play out in cardboard, but was probably a lot less fun in person.

Scenario Fifteen
Dagu Village
17 June 1944
The Japanese 25th Anti-Aircraft Regiment had placed its light and heavy weapons on Nafutan Point, the high ground at the south-eastern corner of Saipan. From there, they could also pour long-range fire on the advancing Americans. The 1/24 Marines, trying to advance through the dense terrain north of the airfield, drew particular attention from the flak gunners.

Conclusion
The Marines took heavy fire, with 40mm shells set to airburst over them inflicting heavy casualties. Counter-battery fire brought only some relief, but eventually the fire slackened: the Marine official history offers no reason why, but it’s pretty obvious that it was directed away from the dogged Marines to the more pressing threat of the “cowardly” Army regiment. With the Fighting 69th drawing Japanese fire, the 1/24 could take its objectives with the help of its own mortars and some attached LVT(A) amphibian light tanks.

Notes
I re-designed this scenario for the new Playbook edition. In the first edition, the Japanese heavy weapons were on the map, but in the actual event they were on the hilly Nafutan Point, well behind the Japanese position. American accounts emphasize the anti-aircraft guns, but the Japanese relied heavily on a battery of four 152mm coast-defense guns with a sophisticated British fire-control radar they had captured earlier in the war.

Scenario Sixteen
Rockets’ Red Glare
17 June 1944
On the left flank of 4th Marine Division, the 23rd Marines faced a strong Japanese force occupying a tough hilltop position. As the Americans fanned out from their beachhead, so did their battalions become ever-more stretched and separated, making it more and more difficult to concentrate force against Japanese strongpoints like this one. But the Marines had a new secret weapon of their own, developed for just such a situation.

Conclusion
The Marine advance came to a complete standstill, with the Japanese holding tough in their well-prepared positions and Marine firepower unable to lever them out. A rocket barrage meant to support the attack fell on the neighboring 2/24 Marines instead, causing 20 casualties there. Eventually the regiment had to commit its third battalion, held back to reinforce a breakthrough, just to hold what little the Marines had already gained.

Notes
This scenario also needed some re-working, as the original confused where the Marine rockets landed. This scenario covers the attack that the rockets should have supported; instead, they struck a neighboring battalion’s positions.

Scenario Seventeen
The Fighting Sixty-Ninth
18 June 1944
The 165th Infantry, National Guardsmen out of New York, gained fame in the American Civil War as the “Fighting 69th” (a moniker bestowed by no less than Robert E. Lee during the Battle of Malvern Hill in 1862) and later as the subject of the well-known 1940 movie starring James Cagney. Already battle-hardened in the hell of Makin Atoll during the previous November, the famed regiment now attacked the ridge at Opyan on the seaward flank of the American advance along Saipan’s southern coast.

Conclusion
Harassing fire from the anti-aircraft guns on Nafutan Point gave the soldiers some difficulty, but they successfully stormed the ridge following a heavy naval bombardment. The Fighting Sixty-Ninth cleared Aslito Airfield and division commander Maj. Gen. Ralph Smith re-named it Conroy Field in honor of Col. Gerald Conroy, the 165th’s former commander, killed in action on Makin. Later that day Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith over-ruled Ralph Smith and named the airstrip Isley Field in honor of Cdr. Robert Isley, a naval aviator shot down over Saipan. The inter-service pettiness was only beginning, but by the 20th Army Air Force P-47s were flying support missions for both Marine and Army units.

Notes
This scenario also needed some re-working, since it also puts the Japanese anti-aircraft guns in the front line. In terms of game-play, it’s one in which the Japanese player has actually useful off-board artillery support as two small forces struggle to hold the high ground. With soundtrack by Dropkick Murphys. How many scenarios have their own theme music?

Scenario Eighteen
Seven Lives for One’s Country
27 June 1944
For nine days, Captain Mitaro Sasaki of the 317th Independent Infantry Battalion had led a skillful and inspired defense of Nafutan Point on the south-eastern tip of Saipan. Sasaki’s men, starving and running out of ammunition, could not hold out any longer. “I would rather be reborn as the same human for seven lifetimes and destroy the enemies of the Empire,” Sasaki quoted the legendary samurai Masasuse Kusunoki, “than to go to paradise or some such.” Spearheaded by 120 men wielding captured M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles, Sasaki led the survivors of his own battalion and other Army and Navy units in a final, last-ditch assault on the Americans pinning his force to Nafutan Point. Sasaki hoped to re-join Japanese forces to the north, unaware that they had withdrawn days before.

Conclusion
Sasaki’s attack broke through the U.S. Army troops holding the line opposite his battalion, and 20 men rampaged across Aslito Airfield. One tossed a Molotov cocktail into the cockpit of a P47, while three other planes were damaged beyond repair by stabbing them energeticly with bayonets. A brutal hand-to-hand fight raged across the airfield between the desperate Japanese and the American pilots and mechanics; one American engineer officer deployed a jeep as a weapon to run over Japanese soldiers.

“You must not return alive,” Sasaki told his men, according to survivor Toshiharu Arimura. “Charge forward while shouting as loudly as possible.” He handed out grenades to the wounded, instructing them to “die.” All of them did so, shouting “Long Live the Emperor,” except one who, according to surviving SNLF soldier Yoshio Ideguchi, simply called out, “Mother.” The Japanese next assaulted the bivouacs of the 14th Marines, an artillery outfit, where they killed 33 Americans but almost all of the attackers perished. The handful of survivors hid themselves around the airfield and sniped at American planes for days afterwards.

Notes
It’s not in the special rules that the Japanese player must shout Banzai! when playing this scenario, but it really should be. A mass of Japanese Army and SNLF infantry fling themselves on the Marines, seeking only to burst through them and onward to the American rear areas.

And that’s Chapter Three. Next time, it’s Chapter Four.

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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.

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