Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19441776 Club

4,300 starving men charge at Saipan before dawn; the fighting lasts fifteen hours

General Saitō leads walking wounded and civilians into the 105th Infantry's 1st and 2nd Battalions near Tanapag, out of food, ammunition, and nearly out of island.

By early July 1944, Japanese forces on Saipan were out of food, out of ammunition, and nearly out of island. On July 7, General Yoshitsugu Saitō gathered almost 4,300 men, walking wounded and civilians among them, for one final assault near Tanapag. The charge slammed into the Army's 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment before dawn, and after fifteen hours of close fighting, nearly all of the attackers had been killed…

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