It has been nearly 80 years since the World War II Battle of Saipan but researchers have discovered the Pacific seafloor battlefield remains much as it was in 1944, including evidence of “catastrophic crashing events.”
Aircraft, shipwrecks, Sherman tanks, submarine chasers and amphibious vehicles were found by the team — some completely intact and others showing evidence of a violent end.
Among the haunting discoveries was a plane riddled with bullet holes, according to expedition leader Jennifer McKinnon, principal Investigator of Ships of Discovery and professor at East Carolina University.
What the team found counts as one of the best preserved World War II battlefields in the Pacific Theater, experts say.
“It certainly has the most diverse set of vehicles, aircraft and shipwrecks (Japanese and US) of any of the WWII battlefields in the Pacific,” McKinnon told McClatchy News.
“The sites are well preserved and identifiable. And they do fair better than land based sites due to development and other cultural and natural processes. Other for comparisons like Pearl Harbor are just US shipwrecks, and Chuuk are just Japanese shipwrecks. So the answer is yes, as a complete underwater battlefield, it is arguably the best preserved battlefield in the Pacific waters.”
The Battle for Saipan
The widely strewn wreckage provides a narrative for “the largest U.S. amphibious invasion in the Pacific theater at the time and a decisive moment for WWII in the Pacific,” reports NOAA Ocean Exploration, which funded the expedition.
It began with a beach landing on June 15, 1944, and ended as a U.S. victory over Japan in the Northern Mariana Islands, military historians say.
The fighting came at great cost, however.
“Of the 71,000 U.S. troops that landed, nearly 3,000 were killed and more than 10,000 wounded,” the National Park Service reports.
“Out of the entire Japanese garrison of 30,000 troops, only 921 prisoners were captured; the rest died. The Japanese commanders and some 5,000 others committed suicide rather than surrender. … On 9-12 July, hundreds of Japanese civilians committed suicide, many by leaping off the high cliffs on the northern end of the island.”
The battlefield — spread across land and sea — is today protected as part of a U.S. National Historic Landmark District that includes Aslito/Isely Air Field and Saipan Island.
The expedition’s goal
Because much of the battlefield is under water, historians have never had an accurate accounting of what sits off Saipan, about 3,850 miles west of Hawaii.
The seafloor search included an international team of historians, archaeologists and biologists challenged to locate, investigate and document military artifacts linked to the Battle of Saipan.
Nearly a dozen known wreck sites were surveyed April 22 through May 14, and “several” previously unknown artifacts were found, including amphibious landing vehicles, officials said.
Among the wrecks extensively surveyed was a US PBY Coronado aircraft that was only known by a few local divers, officials say. It sits in 80 feet of water outside Saipan’s barrier reef and “has never before been archaeologically recorded.”
“There are obvious wrecking or sinking patterns on some of the sites which indicate bombing or catastrophic crashing events. We’ve pieced together some of the identities of the sites to specific vehicles, ships, and planes,” McKinnon said.
It’s likely more war relics remain hidden in the area, she added.
What next for the site?
“So now we have 15 years of data on these sites which is actually pretty rare,” McKinnon says.
“The only other WWII sites with this much monitoring is the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor. We have learned that the sites are still be impacted by divers and natural impacts like bigger storms related to climate change.”
Data comparison shows there has been “some pretty incredible deterioration” of the artifacts over the past 15 years, she said.
Among the problems, she says, are tourists who can’t resist picking things up.
“During one site recording visit, a tourist dive boat made a pretty significant disturbance on the site which we were able to record,” McKinnon said.
“They picked up the steering wheel of the ship, no doubt for a picture, and then dropped it into another place. The steering wheel was intact the last we saw it in 2017 and it is now missing its inside spokes. This type of behavior is not sustainable for heritage and diving tourism.”
The research data is being presented in a report to the Northern Mariana Islands Historic Preservation Office, which manages the historic battlefield. The office was a major partner in the project and has been instrumental in protecting the historic sites.
“They may take steps to prevent some cultural impacts like installing mooring buoys at the sites,” McKinnon said. ”I hope they do.”
Expedition partners included the Florida Public Archaeology Network and Task Force Dagger Foundation.
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