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

One rulebook to rule them all.

That’s the idea behind the Panzer Grenadier series. Each game has its own special rules, and Saipan 1944 is no exception. In Panzer Grenadier: Saipan 1944, there’s some unusual terrain, like salt marches and jungle, but the series core rules are there. Likewise caves, which can become deadly fortresses. Also covered in the series rules.

It’s a comprehensive rulebook, meant to cover every theater of World War II tactical combat, plus a few years on either side of the 1939-1945 timeframe (like the 1950-52 Korean War, or the 1935-36 Italo-Ethiopian War). And yet, the core rules are just 34 pages, not counting the index or optional rules. Once you’ve mastered those thirty-four pages there are dozens of books and games, with thousands of scenarios (thousands!) ready for you to play. You don’t have to play them all (though you could), and you can play them with new friends from all over the globe through the online play opportunities of Panzer Grenadier Headquarters.

This is a game crying out to be played. By you. Let’s have a look at Chapter Four’s scenarios.

Chapter Four
The Push Inland
The American plan called for 4th Marine Division to secure Aslito Airfield and push to the eastern shore of Saipan along Magicienne Bay. That should have already been completed, but the morning of 18 June found the south-eastern corner of the island still in Japanese hands along with most of the rugged high ground that made up the spine of Saipan.

A page from the “Red Book” of the 2/24th Marine battalion, handed out when they left Camp Pendleton, California, in January 1944. The unknown owner of this book marked each man killed in action with an X: five of the company’s six officers (one apparently by friendly fire), and 10 of the 42 enlisted men shown on this page.

The Army’s 27th Infantry Division would tackle the Japanese pocket to the south-east, while the Marines worked to clear the eastern shore of Saipan and the high ground north of the airfield. “Clear” is one of those military euphemisms that seeps into military history; this meant seeking out small groups or individual Japanese soldiers in hidden positions and killing them, even as they sought to ambush Marines. It was a brutal sort of fighting, that had been seen on other Pacific islands and would be again.

On the Japanese side, 31st Army headquarters was well aware that no one was leaving Saipan alive.

“I congratulate the soldiers on the front lines for their good fighting,” Emperor Hirohito radioed. “If Saipan were to be lost, it would mean air raids on Tokyo, so we must secure Saipan at all costs.”

“Have received your honorable Imperial words,” replied Maj. Gen. Igetea Keiji, 31st Army’s acting commander, by radio. “By 10,000 deaths, we hope to gain Imperial favor.” Turning to his staff, he angrily added, “We can’t do what we can’t do!”

Scenario Nineteen
Gas Alarm
18 June 1944
With 4th Marine Division preparing for a general attack to sweep across the island to its east coast, the strongly-fortified Japanese positions along a ridge line north-east of Mount Fina Susu first had to be cleared. By this point the Japanese command on the island had lost any semblance of control of their units; the infantry and support elements would have to fight and die where they stood. Even if 31st Army had wished to pull back, they had no idea of their units’ positions and lacked effective means of contacting them.

Conclusion
The 23rd Marine Regiment had avoided sacking 1st Battalion’s commander by assigning his rifle and mortar elements to Lt. Col. John J. Cosgrove of the 3rd Battalion, sending them back into action when the attack of the 3/24th Marines stalled in the face of heavy Japanese machine-gun and mortar fire. A Marine shell touched off a Japanese stockpile of explosives, sending forth a cloud of poison gas. At least, this is the Marine Corps official history’s explanation.

Notes
Did someone deploy poison gas on Saipan? If so, who was it? The explanation that some Japanese mad scientists were brewing up some home-made bombs in a front-line dugout does not pass muster.

Scenario Twenty
Tanks Again
18 June 1944
The 24th Marines by-passed a heavily-fortified rocky outcrop in their drive for Saipan’s eastern coast. When they reached Magicienne Bay, the Japanese dug in on Nafutan Point would lose contact with the rest of the Saipan garrison. The Marine advance slackened in mid-afternoon, and the Japanese took advantage to launch a small counter-attack backed by two of their few remaining tanks.

Conclusion
The tiny tank attack had no hope of defeating the Marine advance, but it could delay it, and this it did very well. Taken by surprise, the Marines had no tanks of their own or anti-tank guns, deploying bazookas and artillery fire to drive off, though not destroy, the offending Japanese sardine cans.

Notes
This time the Japanese have tanks, and the Marines just have Marines. But they tanks aren’t very good, while the Marines are. The Japanese are out to inflict casualties, and that will mean using their armor support, such as it is.

Scenario Twenty-One
Hill 500
20 June 1944
Straddling the boundary between the two Marine divisions, the well-fortified Hill 500 posed a significant obstacle as the American advance turned to the north. The 25th Marines, with two battalions attacking on a narrow frontage, would have support from two battalions of artillery and the 1st Provisional Rocket Detachment. The Japanese had many caves, but not very many troops.

Conclusion
Under a heavy smoke screen and a barrage of shells and rockets, Lt. Col. Justice M. Chambers (who would win the Congressional Medal of Honor on the beaches of Iwo Jima a year later) led his 3/25th Marines forward. The Japanese had few men atop the hill, but they defended their caves fiercely, shocking the Marines when they counted only 44 bodies, not counting those buried in the caves or under the rubble of the rocky hilltop.

Notes
The Japanese are starting to lose some of their cohesion: these defenders are not as eager to die for the Emperor as those in previous battles, and they have fewer heavy weapons to support them. But they do have a whole complex of caves, and some rough hilltop terrain. The Marines get to shoot rockets at them, and have flamethrowers, too.

Scenario Twenty-Two
Combined Arms
20 June 1944
Lt. Col. Richard Rothwell of the 2/24th Marines faced a hastily-arranged Japanese defensive line manned by the troops who’d been pulled off of the nearby Hill 500. Fourth Marine Division assigned him plenty of armored support: medium tanks, “Satan” flamethrowing tanks, and armored amphibian tractors acting as light tanks. Rothwell had trained his battalion since its formation in 1943, as executive officer and commander. Now he would test its ability to cooperate with armor under battlefield conditions.

Conclusion
Rothwell executed, he wrote afterwards, “the best-coordinated tank and infantry attack of the campaign.” There were not many such attacks in the campaign, but this one did overrun the Japanese lines before they could finish digging in. Rothwell, a long-service “China Marine,” would live to be 99 years old, dying in 2012.

Notes
It’s another comparatively small clearing action, with the Japanese well-fortified in a hilltop position with caves to help strengthen their defenses, and plentiful support weapons this time. But the Marines can call on the aid of Satan. They have two platoons of the flame-throwing tanks, plus a couple more of conventional Shermans plus LVT’s serving as light tanks to help out.

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

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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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